[Fanfiction][Crossover][Worm][Warframe]Sentient Worm

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Taylor Hebert: Tenno

Taylor struggles to open the door to her prison became weaker and weaker as despair and exhaustion caught up with her. Just as she was about to black out she sees two enormous beings circling around each other shedding parts of themselves. One of those parts is falling towards her, so she reaches out towards it like you might reach towards a falling star you were making a wish on. As she does she falls into the void between all things and lands on a metal floor before blacking out.

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 Taylor’s eyes flutter open to the sound of people moving around and the occasional beeping. Above her is a clear canopy through which she can see a patterned blue ceiling. The walls are white with gold highlights and the occasional blue light tracing through it. As she turns her head to one side she can see a row of additional pods, all of which are in a vertical position with the lids open.

“Hello?” she croaks, immediately a man in some sort of uniform and says something incomprehensible to her in a no-nonsense tone of voice.

“I’m sorry, I can’t understand you.”

The man smiles at her and says something that she assumes is reassuring before reaching up and touching something out of sight. As he does her vision goes black again.

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Taylor wakes up in the pod again to the sound of a couple of men talking “…fascinating. You say that she has had absolutely no genetic modifications or nanite treatments prior to being found on our ship?”

“Yes sir, we were able to take a complete genetic scan as well as a digital copy of her brain without any loss of life or data. Let me introduce you to cephalon Taylor.”

She hears her voice coming from a nearby wall, “Hello? Hello? Why is it dark? Where am I?”

The second voice answers her, “Hello Taylor, you’re in a computer at the moment as we took a copy of you before we administered the standard nanite treatments and inoculations just in case there were any unknown side effects. You’ll be happy to know that your original self is fine and should be waking up soon.”

“Oh, is that why I can’t feel panic?”

“It is, and congratulations, you’re the first cephalon that has ever been created without killing the host. When we place you into a proper vessel you’ll have your emotions back and so much more.”

“Please, tell me where am I?”

“You are on board the Zariman Ten Zero. I’m going to place you on standby now until we can get you your own cube. It will be like going to sleep.”

The first man speaks up again, “Fascinating, and you got her genetic data too?”

“We did, when we get back to real space this will revolutionise the cloning process. Her people still had 28 chromosomes, and absolutely no signs of any genetic tampering. We’re not currently sure if she’s a time traveller or fell into the void from another world, but what is clear is that she is Orokin, though from an older genetic lineage than anyone currently alive. If we could get hold of a male from the same place it would completely revolutionise cloning. As it stands this should allow us to develop automatic corrections to flash cloned people.”

“Good, I need you to classify this data under T0V-oral protocols. We’ll inform our superiors when we return to real space. What of the girl?”

“I’ve given her the required treatments to allow her to survive in our environment. When she woke up last time her vitals were all steady, so I activated the flash learning program to give her the basic knowledge that she’ll need to participate in our society.”

“Very good, place her with the families in the unshielded parts of the ship. She can be part of the experiment on void exposure. We need to know if void travel is safe for us as it’s our only possible advantage against the sentients at the moment.”

“I understand sir. We did find one thing though, she had an anomalous growth in her brain that contained non-human mitochondrial DNA. We’ve excised it just to be safe, but it lends credence to sideways travel rather than time travel. She also had a variety of insect life and additional human DNA around her feet. It was somewhat degraded, but we have enough that we could make viable clones of the female donors.”

Whatever the response was going to be is cut off by a beep coming from the wall, “I’m sorry sir, but that’s the timer that I activated to indicated when the programming should finish. It’s likely that the first thing she’ll do when she wakes up is open the canopy, so we shouldn’t be talking about anything classified.”

“Understood, we really need to develop a way for the computer to tell the difference between training brainwaves and conscious brainwaves.”

The second man laughs, “We can, it’s just an invasive process to monitor the brain directly and has been shown to lead to death or paralysis in 60% of cases. Till then we have to rely on motion sensors and passive readings.”

Taylor decides that this is now a good time to look at the inside of her pod rather than listening in, opening her eyes she’s unsurprised that a tone goes off somewhere behind her. As hinted at, everything looks more familiar and she can see the access controls on the inside of the lid. Virtual controls as is normal for Orokin technology, but still there. Reaching up she presses the capsule release button. Reasoning, out of fear, that if they could give her knowledge of the language and technology, they could also take memories away. Taylor decided that she was never going to talk about what she just heard in the presence of anyone that might be military.

“Good evening Miss, I’m Doctor Jae-Hwa and this is Commander Monteiro, you are aboard the Orokin vessel Tamerin 10-zero. We are currently on the way to the Outer Gates, however we’ve had a drive failure so we’re stuck while they try to repair it. What can you remember from before you woke up in the pod?”

Taylor panics slightly as the memory of being pushed into the locker returns with astounding clarity. The Doctor reaches over behind her and suddenly she’s not panicking any more, and she’s back in the pod rather than her memory.

“What did you do?”

“I instructed the pod to convert cortisol and adrenaline to saline and sugars. It also boosted your serotonin levels to counteract the dip you just experienced. Do you think you can tell us what happened now?”

Taylor takes a deep breath as the knowledge of the nanites floating in her body come to the fore, like something she learned as a child, and how these pods are made specially to interact with them. Taking another deep breath she thinks about the locker, it’s strange being able to view it without the feeling of fear or panic. Almost like she’d seen it on TV rather than lived it. “This morning I was shoved into my locker before classes started. The bullies that did it locked the door behind me. I know I was in there for hours, as the class bell rang at least 4 times…”

Dispassionately she describes the feelings and situation she’d been in, as well as the vision she saw just before she landed on the 10-0. With her emotions being artificially levelled and the skillful questioning of the Doctor and Commander, she revealed details about Earth Bet, it’s contact with Earth Aleph, as well as para-humanity and the End Bringers. Later, when her emotions were no longer being suppressed, she’d be glad that someone else knew, even if they couldn’t do anything to help.

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 Some hours later Taylor follows the Commander into the civilian area of the ship, passing through some agricultural areas as well as what seem like parks. Finally they stop at apartment 83402-b.

“Taylor, thank you again for being so patient with us. Once we’re under weigh again we’ll be stopping at the space station by the outer gates. Until then I think that Kay and her son Rell will be a better fit than the military areas of the ship.”

The aforementioned Kay opens the door, which slides into a recess in the wall, “Hello?”

“Good evening Ma’am, we have a last minute berthing change. This is Taylor of Brockton Bay, she has been assigned your unused room.”

“Well come in then, do you have any luggage dear?”

Taylor shuffles awkwardly, “Ah, no. My arrival wasn’t exactly conventional.”

“Never mind, I’m sure that we can get some stuff from the stores. Commander, any idea what’s going on with the ships drive?”

“Sorry, all I know is that the mechanics are having to refabricate some parts by hand as the void is playing havok with nanite replicators, and the ones that are working are too small for the parts we need to replace.”

Over the next couple of weeks Taylor settles into life abord an Orokin vessel, with all the luxuries and downsides that entails. Even the fact that they have cracked nearly lossless matter/energy transfer and use it so casually becomes a mundane part of her life. Rell introduces her to the other children her age, and they start to teach her how to have friends again. Despite the abrasive nature that Rell gives out due to a complication from being a natural, she tries to keep him included in the stuff the other children are doing.

Kay explained it as a mental development disorder that’s a rare side effect of having a non-nanite assisted pregnancy. The closest that Taylor could associate it with is Autism.

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 “I remember. I Remember!” Taylor staggers out of her somatic link as the memories from her past are unveiled.

“Operator, what are you doing?” Ordis’ voice comes out over the intercom.

“I remember Ordis, I remember.”

“Oh dear, you seem to have lost your warframe. Maybe we should retreat to a safer part of the system.”

“Tenshin! No, I’m going back for him.”

“But how? The somatic link.”

“I don’t need the link.”

 

Transferring back to her Titania she activates it to still be under assault from the Kuva Queen as her red psychic spike pushes into her forehead. Forcing the psychic probe out of her mind she soon finds herself in a fight for both her life and the life of Tenshin that stretches her barely remembered void abilities to their breaking point. Eventually though she is able to disarm the queen, which frees Tenshin from the Queens control.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Taylor Hebert: Tenno – 2

 

“Lotus.”

“Yes Tenno.”

“You can call me Taylor.”

“Yes Taylor, you remember?”

“I do, thank you for looking out for us after…”

“You are all my children, I couldn’t have asked for better.”

“About that, I know I was found on the ship with the others. However, I don’t come from this system. Well, that’s not quite true, I either came from a parallel universe, or from the past.”

“That certainly explains the differences in your genetic profile.”

“I, I just want to know. How long has it been?”

“Are you sure?”

Taylor swallows, “I, yes I’m sure.”

“The earth has orbited the sun nearly a thousand times since you came into my care.”

Taylor sags with the knowledge. She’d always had some hope that she could get home in a human lifetime before they stole her memories. Closing the connection she sags before heading over to the navigation console and entering the coordinates of her private dojo. Once she arrives she transfers out of her warframe and opens a connection to Amaryn of the New Loka. With her memories returned, the conversation reminds her of talking to E88 fanatics at home. When she hangs up the call, she tries to compare what Amaryn was like before the Titania was reformed.

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 A few months later Taylor has just finished putting together her first amplifier with Onkko’s help. And wasn’t that a shock to find out. The “deceased” husband of Saya, the nice woman that she met a year or so ago when she first visited Cetus. Turns out that yes he was being an arse by pretending to be dead, but he was a precog arse. And isn’t that an amazing thing.

Thinker, Shaker, Changer, Breaker.

Brute, Blaster, Stranger, Master.

Tinker and Trump round out the rest.

The PRT is the best.

The things that stick in your mind from TV adverts. I wonder how Emma got on after I disappeared.

Whirling around Taylor looks at the person walking away from her. She’d know that body and red hair anywhere. Breaking into a jog, she quickly catches up with her while calling “Emma, Emma!”. When she puts her hand on the girls shoulder, they turn around.

“Hello, can I help you?”

Taylor recoils at the Grineer accent, “N No, sorry you look like someone I used to know.”

Staggering away, she transfers back into the comforting embrace of her warframe. She needed to check something.

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“Welcome back Operator.”

“How many times do I need to tell you to call me Taylor?”

“At least once more. You’re just in time, I’ve picked up a distress call from a red veil.”

“Ordis, can you give me a mo. I need you to check something urgently.”

“What can Ordis do for the Operator?”

“I need you to bring up a list of all the current assassination jobs.”

“Complying, they are bleeding onto your navigation screen now.”

“Are you glitching again Ordis?”

“Certainly not Operator.”

“Ordis, didn’t we kill Tyl Regor last month?”

“Our mission logs say that we did.”

“I need to patch me through to the Lotus.”

“Are we going to mount his head on a pike taking the contract?”

“No, I think his research has received a boost from the past.”

Lotus’ face appeared in the communicator, “You wanted to talk Tenno. Taylor.”

“Yes, I met Emma Barnes in the Cestus market today. Only she spoke with a Grineer accent.”

The Lotus pauses as she considers what I just said, Ordis on the other hand has no such filter, “Error, the operator seems to be malfunctioning.”

“I’m not Ordis, I entered the void from a school locker in high school. It was 2011, and Emma Barnes, Sophia Hess, and Madison Clements had been bullying me for a year an a half. The day I arrived on the Zamarin they put the contents of the feminine hygiene bins in my locker. When I opened the door they shoved me in while I was frozen in disbelief. After they healed me on the Zamerin, they ran the basic education package. I suspect that there was more to it than the civilian package as I remember being more knowledgeable than the rest of the children. However, what they didn’t know is that I woke up earlier than they expected. That’s when I found out that they’d been able to get useable DNA from some of the feminine hygiene products that came with me.”

“Ordis has to ask. What is a feminine hygiene product?”

Taylor feels herself flush at the question, “Erm, the earth that I come from didn’t have any nanite machines or personal waste recycling technology, and erm, well, you know women menstruate every month? Well, erm, Feminine Hygiene products are specific pads and insertable tampons designed to absorb the blood to make it cleaner to deal with.”

“Ordis wonders if this would be a good time to address the distress call.”

Lotus shakes her head, “Yes, Ordis play the call.”

 

A breathy voice speaks from behind her, “Rap, tap, tap.”

As Taylor looks around for the source of the voice a woman does a good impression of a backstreet medium trying to contact the dead. Her attention snaps back to the call when someone answers.

“Mmm. R-r-r-ellll.”

“I know that name, he was the kid I stayed with. I tried to look after him, but the other kids…” – She trails off as the lander becomes suffused with red light – “What’s happening to the lights? Ordis? Ordis”

Ordis’s voice cuts in, “I’m sorry operator, the message appears to be haunted, halted.”

Taylor shakes her head, “I think you were right the first time.”

Sounding concerned, Lotus asks, “What did you see Taylor?”

…

“I, I don’t know. Some sort of shaker effect made the whole lander appear to be infused with red light.”

“I am not familiar with that word used like that.”

“It’s a word from home that describes a power that affects an area. Uh, we had super heroes?” Taylor trails off weakly as both of them looked at her through their respective viewports.

“Ordis has analysed the message, it appears to have come from a Red Veil ship, the ship appears to be without power.”

“Ordis set a navigation co-ordinate, I’m going in.”

The Lotus looks concerned, “Ten, Taylor, are you sure about this?”

“Yes, I want to know why the name Rell came up.”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Taylor Herbert: Tenno – 3

Walking through an apparently abandoned Steel Meridian ship, Grineer that had broken their programming and were now working on their own, with the lights off, left Taylor feeling like she was in a cheap Aleph horror movie. At least she was a heavily armed protagonist this time. And she’s in her wisp so no matter the condition of the vip, she should be able to get them on their feet and moving. On second thoughts, maybe getting her memories back wasn’t such a good thing. Dead bodies, check.

“These were killed by knives.”

Taylor almost yelps when The Lotus decides to make herself known, “Don’t do that, it’s bad enough that I’m living the plot of a cheap slasher flick.”

“I don’t know what that is. Regardless, you should look around, see if there’s anything else.”

“When I finish here, remind me to tell you what genre aware means. As if I end up fighting some sort of zombies I’m going to call shenanigans.”

“What are zombies?”

“Reanimated corpses of the dead, sometimes you didn’t need to die, there was just a virus that killed your upper brain functions. The different genres of films were more popular on Aleph. For us on Bet, they were a little too close to possible given Nilbog, Heartbreaker, and half a dozen other famous masters. Oh look, another dead body. Knives again?”

“You are correct.”

“Lucky me, Emma’s father, Alan, was an officiando and had a secret stash of DVD’s. Before she turned on me I used to spend practically every other weekend there, and at some point we’d sneak one of the films and watch it. Some of them were so cheesy, like Superman. I mean, with people like Alexandria actually flying around. Hang on, red feather? That’s the Red veil isn’t it.”

“It is, if they are involved then you need to be careful.”

“Oh, believe me I am already being careful. At least won’t be the Slaughterhouse 9.”

“Who are they?”

“They’re a persistent group of villians from Bet, Bonesaw, a precocious girl that gained her powers during one of their attacks. She is a biotinker, able to make virus’, bacteria, and modify you into obscene displays that are somehow still alive and aware. Shatterbird, a shaker that can control silicon. All silicon in a 5 mile radius. She is arguably the most famous, as her scream is the first most people know about the 9’s arrival. Writing on the wall painted in blood, check.”

“You are awfully calm about this Taylor.”

“No I’m not, I’m just talking to you about the worst humanity has to offer on my homeworld to keep my mind off of the fact that I’m probably going to be jumped by a mindless red veil operative. Where was I, Shatterbird, yes, her calling card breaks all of the glass and silicon chips in the area.”

“What are silicon chips? Do you eat them?”

“What? No, bet isn’t as advanced as we are so they sill use silicon to make semiconductors with linear binary logic circuits engraved on them. You can thank Mrs Knott for that titbit. The next most famous one is Crawler, he’s a monstrous brute that can regenerate from anything that doesn’t kill him. What makes him famous is that he then becomes immune to that form of injury from that point forward. People think he either has a deathwish, or is addicted to the feeling of being hurt. Either way, he makes his way through a city looking for challenges and slaughtering anyone that isn’t a challenge. Next is the Siberian, she is a naked white woman with tiger stripes and claws.”

“What’s a tiger?”

“It’s an animal native to earth bet? I’ve found the vip.”

“You need to protect her, I am getting anomalous readings on your scanner.”

“Palladino wasn’t it? Hi, I’m Taylor Hebert, and I am to be your body guard for the rest of our time on the ship.”

As she rounds the corner, Taylor’s somewhat surprised to see that it’s the high priestess of the Red Veil, along with a black cat.

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 “Hey Rell, I’m Taylor. Do you want to play a game?”

“Er, busy.”

“That’s ok, do you want me to tell you stories about my home while you’re drawing?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, how about Snow White.”

“Yes.”

“Ok, Snow White was the daughter of a very popular king and his beautiful queen. However, when she was very young her mother died in childbirth.”

“Why?”

“At this time they didn’t have medicine like they do now, so when something went wrong they weren’t able to fix it. Anyway, after he finished mourning, the king was introduced to a beautiful woman. Over time they married and the woman became the new Queen. Unknown to everyone, the new queen was also a witch.”

“What’s a witch?”

“A witch is a woman that can do magic, summoning spirits, speaking with the dead, brewing potions, placing hexes and curses, and even being able to heal people. They usually have a familiar, often a black cat. These serve as guardians and spiritual protectors, warning the witch of approaching dangers.”

Rell looks up from his drawing, “What happened to them?”

“A long time ago, there was a religious uproar about the supposed evils that witches had caused. So the church, you remember what that is?”

“Yes.”

“The church led a hunt for all suspected witches. What actually happened is that lots of people took the opportunity to accuse people they were jealous off, leading to a lot of innocent women being killed. They also caught all of the women that were a bit different through no fault of their own. People are often afraid of differences, and that makes them lash out at them. At the time I left Earth Bet, witches weren’t really a thing there, though that was because superheroes and villains took over the public consciousness. On Earth Aleph they apparently had a revival of witchcraft, and started holding seances and doing ritual magic again.”

“What’s a séance?”

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 “Are you a witch?” Taylor blurts.

“I am, how do you know that term?”

“It really is Rell then.”

Out of the shadows, red veil operatives start to approach with their knives, “Sisters, you must resist. Come back to yourselves.”

When the first one takes a swipe at Taylor, centuries of ingrained instincts kick in and she takes of their head with her whip before moving to set up her fields by Palladino. What followed was a frantic firefight as the mindless followers tried to overwhelm them. As soon as their numbers broke, the two of them made a break for the extraction point along with the kavat. Once she was safely aboard a shuttle home, Palladino called Taylor.

“Tenno, thank you for the rescue. Please could you meet me at our compound on earth, Iron Wake. I’ve sent the location to your ship.”

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Taylor Herbert: Tenno – 4

 

“Ordis, can you set in coordinates for Iron Wake?” – Taylor pauses for a second – “Actually no, given that the cluster #*!% is happening I need to do something else first. Patch me through to The Lotus.”

“Greetings Tenno.”

“Lotus, or would you prefer Natah?”

The Lotus looks defensive at the question, “I left that name behind long ago.”

“Look, I’m not Orokin, I never have been Orokin and a few weeks ago I discovered that I’d been mastered into forgetting who I am by the Orokin. So I’m doing something that I wished someone would do when I was being bullied in High School. I’m calling just to see how you’re doing and if there’s anything you’d like to talk about. We can even meet face to face if you want to talk about it without any recording equipment around.”

“But you need to deal with the Red Veil.”

“Look, I want to find out what’s going on with Rell as much as anyone, probably more than most. However, whatever’s going on has been breaking for a long time and they never reached out for help. So I figure that a few hours or a day or so won’t make any difference as it’s already FUBAR. On the other side of things, it’s been less than 6 goddamn months since your father came back from the dead and tried to take you over.”

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“Well that’s fairly obvious, I’m guessing you’ve just pushed it to the back of your mind and are keeping yourself busy.”

“Tenno.”

Taylor interrupts, “No, not Tenno! Taylor. I’m Taylor. Tenno is a title, it’s a way of distancing yourself from us. Tenno is what I am, Taylor is who I am. Who are you? Is The Lotus a title or a name?”

“I’m not human.”

“Woo Hoo, neither am I if you look at my DNA, I’ve got a whole extra chromosome compared to everyone else. Also, in the non-human stakes, you’re up there compared to some of the people I’ve heard of. Weld in Boston is literally made of metal, Newter is a lizard that sweats LSD, Gregor the Snail literally looks like a giant snail. Doesn’t stop them being people, there are thousands of case 53’s where I come from. Not being human doesn’t mean you’re not a person.”

“But we came to destroy the Orokin.”

“Not an Orokin, don’t care.”

“I was supposed to kill the Tenno.”

“But you didn’t, just proving my point that you’re a person too.”

“I have my duty to the Tenno.”

“When was the last time you took time to do something yourself?”

“I can’t.”

“What do you mean you… Oh, you’re trapped somewhere aren’t you. Right, give me your coordinates I’m coming to kidnap you. If you don’t I’ll have Ordis scan every inch of Lua until I’ve found you.”

“It’s fine, I deserve this.”

“Oh no you don’t. You deserve captivity about as much as I deserved being shoved in my locker. Now give me your coordinates or I’m going to instruct Ordis.”

“No, I forbid you to come, it’s too dangerous.”

“Ordis, locate The Lotus for me, I’m going to kidnap her and take her shopping. Maybe even buy myself a bloody bed while I’m at it too.”

“Calculating, signal traced. Are you sure about this Operator?”

“Yes, yes I am. Let’s go.”

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 “Operator, I’m not sure about this.”

Taylor was jogging through the ruin on Lua as she responds, “Look, someone needs to treat her as an actual person. To show her that it’s who you are and not what you are that matters.”

“But Operator, you were created to fight the Sentients.”

“No Ordis, I wasn’t. Nobody was. I was born same as everyone else in their own way. Margulis stole my memories in a misguided attempt to help me control my powers, her superiors then forced us into being their good little soldiers. Then someone turned us against the Orokin, and finally Natah saved our lives. No more than you were created to be a ships cephalon. If there’s one thing I learnt growing up in a city with the E88, it’s that nobody is born with any greater destiny. Then my best friend taught me that everything that is good in your life can be taken away and turned against you. Being a Tenno has taught me that you have to fight for your right to be a person. This is me fighting for The Lotus’ right to be a person.”

“The target is just up ahead Operator.”

“Thank you Ordis.”

 

It took Taylor nearly half an hour to unlock the Lotus’ pod, especially given that The Lotus seemed to be resisting the effort. Eventually it was done and it opened up like an orchid. Looking unimpressed, the lotus stands there.

“Well, now what?”

“Ordis, where do those cables go?”

“Tracking. Warning, operator I’m sensing a massive Sentient target.”

“Right. So, is this your body and the Sentient is like our Somatic pods, or is this a projection and the Sentient is your body?”

The lotus just looks at Taylor stunned.

“Fair enough, it’s not like it matters. Come on, I’m glad I brought my Atlas as I’m going to need its strength to carry your body back to my lander.” - As she walks in the direction of the signature she looks back over her shoulder, “Coming?”

 

“Ordis, has your operator always been like this?”

“No Lotus, only since she reclaimed her memories.”

The Lotus is still standing there trying to process what’s happening when Taylor comes staggering back with her sentient body in a princess carry. Carefully she puts it down on the floor before drawing her Akarius and handing them hilt first to The Lotus.

“I don’t know if you’ve used pistols before, but these don’t exactly need an accurate aim, if you can’t hit the target hit the floor near by and it will be close enough. I’ve also brought a spear, not that I’m expecting trouble, but if I’ve learnt anything in these conflicts it’s prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”

Gingerly The Lotus takes the pistols and holds them in her hands, like it’s a foreign concept having weapons that are separate from you.

“Take a couple of shots if you want. I’ve got plenty of ammo.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because you need a friend, you need to see how people live, not just how they fight. You need to live, and you need to see how those without power live. Lord Acton, a famous historian who lived around a hundred years before I arrived here, once said ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men.’ Mouse Protector probably said it better though ‘If you don’t keep in touch with the little man, then they’ll be squashed when you fight the big villans.’” Hefting the Sentient body, Taylor starts to stagger back to the landing pad.

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 “Operator, this makes me really uncomfortable.”

“Ordis, you can either get over it or I’ll replace you with Cephalon Cy and you can run the Railjack. It’s your choice. She is my guest and I hope my friend.”

The Lotus speaks up, “It’s OK, I can go back to Lua.”

“No, I meant it. I’ve seen the result of seeing people as what they are rather than who they are. It’s a bit hard not to when you share a city with the E88. If he can’t accept you as a person, then I’m not willing to have Ordis as my ships cephalon.”

Cy speaks up, “The operator is correct, the primary precept of a ships cephalon is to protect their crew. The Lotus is now part of your crew.”

“Ordis will acquiesce, though I reserve the right to say I told you so.”

Taylor nods, even as she’s manhandling the sentient body into her pod chamber, “Natah.”

The Lotus scowls, “I’m not Natah.”

“Look, I’m not going to call you ‘The Lotus’ all the time, as it sounds like a title. If you don’t like Natah, pick another name. Here’s a few, Alex, Jane, Emma, Sophia, Madison, Mary, Teressa, Sarah, Joan, Annette.” She says the last one with a slightly sad note.

“Who was that last one?”

“Annette? She was my mother, she died in a car accident a couple of years before I came here.”

“Anet, that will be my name.”

“Ok Anet. Quick question, did your connection work like our somatic link does?”

“They are crudely similar.”

“How far can you maintain this connection?”

“I can manage orbit, but that’s it.”

“Right, what I was thinking is that we can see if we can trade for some additional somatic fibers in Cetus. If we are, then we could set up a modified pod attached to the orbiters power supply. We could then place one of my spare warframes in your pod on Lua so that it has a permanent link to your body here. It won’t be transference, more like remote control. But it should allow you the freedom you need to explore the solar system incognito while still being able to do your day job.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because you deserve it, because you’re worth it. You’ve given us so much of yourself, so I’m finally giving back to you.”

“How do you know I won’t snap and kill you?”

“Given that you brought me to my pod here once I’d woken up on Lua. I think you’ve more than earned my trust.”

“I didn’t think you’d remember that.”

“You’ve had multiple opportunities to kill me since I woke up the first time. You could have killed all of us at the beginning, but you didn’t. Ordis, set course for earth, Cetus.”

“Yes Operator, course laid in.”

 

“Anet, if you’ll follow me, I’ll show you my living room. Sorry about all the plushies, I kinda got carried away.”

The Lotus follows somewhat numbly, still in shock from being invited into one of her Tenno’s private sanctums. Every single surface was covered with different plushies, excluding a faint trail along the floor from the entrance to the observation window.

“Can you actually see with that helmet on?”

The Lotus jumps as Taylor speaks, “It’s fine.”

“You know, I looked up the word fine once when I was being bullied. According to psychologists it means Freaked out, insecure, neurotic, and emotional.”

“Why do you know these things?”

Taylor looks at her sadly, “I think it’s because we didn’t have machines that could just turn off emotions and remove them from our memories. That’s what they did you know, the Orokin that is, the first thing they did to me when I arrived is switch off my emotions while I was reliving the traumatic memory of what happened to me just before I arrived. They then removed the emotion from that memory. They did it to more of my traumatic memories before I learnt to hide my emotions. I remember they also did it to my memories of being worried about Rell, well until the *@##$ decided that I was causing too much disruption amongst the other Ten-Zero survivors, but was to valuable to be kicked out. That’s when she stole my memories.”

“What does a female kubrow have to do with your treatment as a Tenno?”

“Oh, right, on Earth Bet and Earth Aleph it’s also a slur against a woman. I was referring to Margulis. Anyway, it looks like the sun’s up in Cetus so we should get going.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The Lotus looked around at the people milling around in this compound. A huge Orokin tower in the background buzzed with activity. Wordlessly she follows Taylor around the market place as she haggles, barters, and tries samples of things. Occasionally she’s handed something to try, meat on a stick that had been held over a fire, A lime green drink, and a model condorac were amongst the things she was given. Though the condorac is the only thing she’s still holding. It’s texture is soft and slightly squishy, thinking back there were several that looked like this in the private quarters.

It doesn’t make sense, she’s a sentient and nobody’s attacked her. A few of the humans have even tried to talk to her.

“Saya, Konzu, I’d like to introduce you to Anet, a friend of mine that’s staying with me for a while.”

The Lotus pulls her attention back to the conversation when she hears the name she picked.

Saya looks at her before saying, “Hello Anet, you look a lot like The Lotus the Tenno talk about.”

Taylor laughs, “Only when she’s not working.”

“Oh, I see. What can this old woman do for you Tenno.”

“Taylor, my name’s Taylor. I need to go to the other side of the planet for a meeting. Would you mind playing tour guide for Anet while I’m gone? Also, if you know anyone that’s got any somatic fibers let them know I’m in the market for some and I’m willing to barter handsomely, upto and including platinum.”

“Of course, come my dear Anet, let’s show you around without the intimidating Tenno around.”

The Lotus doesn’t resist as Saya takes her hand and pulls her along back into the market while Taylor goes bounding off to the landing area.

“It’s interesting, she seems to have changed a lot since her last visit. And then there’s you ‘Anet’. How did you end up in her company?”

“She has regained her memories from before she became Tenno, and I’m not sure.”

“Ah, I see. Forgive an old woman her curiosity, but are you a Sentient?”

The Lotus freezes for a moment before resuming her motion.

“Ah, I see. You feel similar to the remnants that rise on the plains at night. You have nothing to fear from us, life is hard enough here without borrowing trouble.”

“But why, we tried to kill you.”

“No you didn’t, and apart from the weird fellow that mans the Quills outpost, I don’t think there’s anyone here that you could possibly have tried to kill.”

“But the old war.”

“Hundreds of years ago you fought against the Orokin. We’re not the Orokin, I’m not even sure if we ever were either. I think this dress would suit your skin colour fabulously.”

The Lotus looks down at the dress that Saya is holding up against her cheek, “I, don’t know.”

“How does it make you feel?”

“Confused.”

“Good, I can work with confused. What about this colour.”

“It, reminds me of stars.”

“Are stars a good thing?”

The Lotus thinks for a moment, “Yes.”

“Tanzan, can you put this to one side, a Tenno by the name of Taylor will be by later to barter for it. Come Anet, let’s go and see the worker in the tower. Maybe they’ve found some of the fibers that Taylor wants.”

Anet squeezes her Condorac, “I think I’d like that.”

Saya smiles an nods as the sentient beside her relaxes slightly.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Taylor Hebert: Tenno – 5

Taylor picks her way carefully through the roots and water that make up the forest covering much of what should be the USA. Once again she curses the fact that all the secret bases on Earth seem to be in these massive overgrown forests. Oh, she understands the reasoning, the tree cover is so dense that these facilities are virtually invisible from space. Only the odd Grineer industrial site is easy to find, and suicide by Tenno is even managing to teach them to tone down the pollution, slowly. In hindsight she should probably have brought a Warframe with her, it would have made this part of the trip much easier. But she couldn’t be bothered to return to the obiter just to return to earth again. After a bit of judicious void jumping she finally makes her way into the compound without getting soaked. One of the Red Veil members walks her to Palladino’s chambers, whether out of politeness, or the fact she doesn’t have the best relationship with the Red Veil faction, she wasn’t sure.

 

Taylor looks around the chamber, Black and Red, ugh, it leaves the place looking so dark, on the far side of a round table sits Palladino with her veil in place.

“Thank you for coming so quickly. We were afraid that you’d leave us to clean up the Tenno’s mess.”

“Actually, I’m here to find out about Rell, as the last I remember was being held back while he was being kicked out again. I was this close to leaving with him, but it seems I was too valuable to just let go.”

“Maybe things would have been different if you had gone with him. It has been our sacred duty to keep him anchored to his humanity, while he holds the man in the wall at bay. A task that has been increasingly difficult recently.”

“I remember something about that.”

“I will try to contact Rell, but we don’t have his Donda so it may fail.”

Taylor tips her head back and looks at the ceiling in exasperation, “You don’t have the thing that he used to focus, and you expect him to be able to focus? Don’t bother, where is it and I’ll go and find it.”

“I, ah.”

“Look, Palladino. I told Rell the stories about mediums, actually I summarised the film Ghost. That then led on to seances and other means of talking to the dead that people tried where I came from. Honestly, I’m surprised you don’t have an Ouija board and glass.” – Palladino shuffles uncomfortably – “This is classic. Once you know where I need to go, give me a call and I’ll pick up Rell’s toy.”

With that, Taylor gets up and walks out. Unfortunately she doesn’t make it back to the lander dry.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 A bedraggled Taylor arrives back at Cetus just in time to see The Lotus, no Anet walking to the village with Saya. A bundle of white fibres in their arms. Jogging, she squelches up behind them.

“Hey, did you have fun?”

Saya nods, “I think so, Tanzan has a couple of dresses for Anet, one of which reminds her of stars. You’ll need to barter for them.”

“Cool, I’ll go do that. How much do I owe you for the fibres?”

“It depends on if you want to buy anything else from us. We would normally expect 40k credits for this much fibre as well as a shipment of food.”

The Lotus shakes her head, “I can pay for this.”

“Anet, you’re not on duty right now. So no, you don’t actually have any of your own resources. Saya, if you’ve got a couple of people that don’t mind a bit of danger, I need to retrieve a pod from Lua, so I’ll pay them 5plat each.”

Saya looks thoughtful, “You’ll provide protection?”

“I will.”

“An additional 5plat if they’re injured, 20 if it requires a prosthetic. 100plat to their next of kin if they die.”

Taylor nods, “Sounds fair. Do you sell beds?”

Saya’s eyebrows try to rise into her head, “You want a bed?”

“Well, yeah, there’s two of us now and only one pod for the moment. So I want somewhere comfortable to sleep.”

“I will have one of our craftsmen make one for you.”

“Thanks, any resources you need for that?”

“Only the usual.”

“Chips, control circuits, and polymer bundles?”

“An Orokin cell too.”

The Lotus watches the conversation play out, still somewhat overwhelmed by not being on Lua, and being treated like a person. She squeezes her Condorac again.

 

After a bit of haggling for the clothes and fibres, the two make their way back to the orbiter.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Anet”, Taylor says from behind the Somatic Link, “could you sit in the Transference pod please?”

The Lotus looks cross, “Why?”

“I think I’ve replaced the cabling, but it needs testing. As I need to be on the outside to fiddle with it, if it doesn’t work first time, that leaves you to sit in the chair.”

“You know I could probably do that better than you can.”

“Look, my Dad was a dockworker, Head of Hiring, and amongst those people you learn a couple of rules. One of which is, never ask a guest to do something you can do yourself. Now sit, or do I need to get a Warframe and manhandle you into the chair?”

“Fine!” The Lotus sulks as she sits in the pod.

Taylor presses the pod close button, “Ordis activate user profile Anet, transfer all completed foundry builds into that users inventory.”

“Ordis thinks the operator is being stupid.”

“Is it done yet?”

“Of course.”

“Bring the Mirage in Anet’s inventory into the Arsenal.”

 

Taylor walks away from the pod, and carefully takes off her amp, before pointing her hand at the void receiver of the pod. Relaxing her control over the void energies, she sends a blast of void energy into it and the fibres light up as she expected.

From behind her Anet screams, “Taylor, what have you done. Ow, void how do you move around with so few senses?”

Taylor saunters out to the docking area, “What do you think of your new Warframe?”

“Taylor, how do I get out of this?”

Taylor smiles sweetly, “The same way I did. Ordis, how’s her systems looking?”

“The signal is optimal. I never thought I’d have two operators.”

“Told you it would work.”

The Lotus turns to her and approaches menacingly until she clips a bulkhead and sprawls on the floor again, “What do you mean ‘Told you it would work?’ Do you have any idea how dangerous this is?”

Taylor void jumps to the other side of the cabin, “For a human. All of the humans that the Orokin tried this on went insane. Until us, until the Tenno. We could use transference to remotely pilot the Warframes without being subject to the infested parts of the Warframe.” – She void jumps again – “Hey, you’re starting to get the hang of moving around now. Anyway, you’re not human, and you never have been. So what’s the difference between this and what you were doing as the Lotus, with the bulk of you locked up elsewhere?”

The Lotus stops and looks towards the living area, where her main chassis is currently stowed. A Chassis that flies silently out and grabs Taylor, “Taylor, you are a, a, something. I don’t know whether to hurt you, hug you, or curse you.”

“How about the last two. Look, you’re free and you can now move around more or less freely. After all, we get everywhere. On top of that, nobody, not even your dear father, can tell that you are anything other than a Tenno.”

“What about you? How are you going to use your Warframes?”

“Ordis,” Taylor says sweetly, “Would you bring my mirage out of storage please?”

“Certainly operator, I must say this could get confusing.”

 

When the fully armed Mirage arrives on the Arsenal pad, Tayor looks at it and transfers out of the Frames grasp and into the Warframe.

“Like this. What? Did you forget that whole thing with the Grineer Queens? I’ve got a stupid mover rating now, probably a 9 or 10.”

The Lotus, no Anet sighs in defeat, “You keep using terms like that, what do they mean?”

“Ordis, while I’m explaining this, I want you to design a skin for a vapor spectre. It has to look exactly like the Lotus, we’ve got her body in the pod so you can use that. When it’s done we’re going to make a few and deploy them on Lua. It will be down to you and the other Cephalons that are looking after Tenno to take over her job. We’ll stick her old helmet on the spectre and you guys can puppet it when giving out orders.”

“Ordis wonders where his operator is going with this.”

“Same place we were going before. Giving Anet a life, one that she’s built herself, where there are no expectations, and nobody brainwashing her into being different people. Once we’ve dealt with Rell, I’d like to find the Zariman again to rescue me from the computers. Then maybe go and see what’s left of my earth, assuming we can find it.”

Anet looks at Taylor, “What do you mean save you?”

Taylor sighs, “Because I had absolutely no nanites when I arrived, the scientist looking after me turned me into a Cephalon. I think they wanted to know what would happen. What happened is that I didn’t get glassed in the process. After seeing Emma in Cetus I have a feeling that I need to get to her before the Grineer do.”

“Ordis has started the build. Ordis also wishes to state that his precepts will not allow him to leave Cephalon Taylor to the mercy of the Grineer.”

“Thanks Ordis. Now, PRT classifications. PRT stands for Parahuman Response Team, and they are normal men and women tasked with policing Parahumans. This ditty was used on one of their TV adverts a few years before I arrived.

“Thinker, Shaker, Changer, Breaker.

Brute, Blaster, Stranger, Master.

Tinker and Trump round out the rest.

The PRT is the best.”

“So, Thinkers are people that have powers related to the mind and perception. It could be enhanced senses, precognition, or some extra sense.

“Shakers, they have an ability that affects an area, think Banshee’s sound quake, or her bubble of silence.

“Changers are those that can change their form, think Titania.

“Breakers are similar to Changers, however their forms are often unsurvivable if they were normal, such as turning into air, lasers, lightning, and the like.

“Brute, really strong and or tough.

“Blaster, has the power to shoot things, could be lasers from the eyes, sound bursts from the hands, or the like.

“Stranger, can either become undetectable in some way, make people think they’re someone or something else, or similar.

“Master, either summons or creates minions, or takes over creatures up to and including humans.

“Tinker, make things that are either impossible or use science that is beyond the bleeding edge

“Trump, they’re never really clear what this classification means. General theories are that it has to do with either having multiple powers, or being able to negate powers.”

 

“Ordis wonders why they have so many different things grouped together.”

“I don’t know, what I do know is that the classification system was designed for PRT troopers not for scientists. I think they used to have more than 20 classifications when I was a child, but by the time I hit high school it was down to those 10.”

Anet runs through possibilities on her chassis, “Ordis, it could be grouped by tactics.”

“Simulating… Ordis thinks you are correct. Crude, but to be expected of meatbags.”

Taylor frowns, “Hey!”

Anet wags her finger at Taylor, “Don’t worry Taylor. You can leave your meatbag status behind any time you want. One tiny prick from my chassis and you never need to worry about human frailties again.”

“Maybe once you’ve forgiven me for kidnapping you and shoving you into a Warframe.”

 

 

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Taylor Hebert: Tenno – 6

 

A few days later, on another ship that’s lost power, “Taylor.”

“A little busy here Anet.”

“How do I reload my pistols?”

“Oh for crying out loud, vent the remains of the previous clip and add the new clip.”

“How do I do that.”

“What happened to your bow?”

“I ran out of arrows.”

“There’s some right there, just pick them up.”

“Where?”

“For the love of god, have you turned your overlay off again? Wait, don’t answer that, just get your Chassis to fix it. It can look up the spe… Yikes!”

“Oh, hey that worked, thanks Taylor.”

“Why do you keep turning it off?”

“It’s distracting, it’s hard enough operating with only 4 senses without it.”

“Right, new plan. Once we’ve finished here, you’re running Mars solo until you’ve got the hang of everything. While you’re doing that I’ll use Cy to get me to the Red veil again.”

“Operator, Ordis thinks you may be making a mistake.”

“Ordis, who would you trust Anet to at the moment, yourself who guided me through my early days, or Cy?”

“Ordis thinks you may be right.”

 

“I’ve got it! I’ve reloaded my pistols.”

“No need to sound so happy about it, just start killing again.”

“Hey!”

“Oh, there’s Rell’s Donda. I’m going to grab it, keep an eye out as he was very possessive about it…

“Oh void, I was right. Anet!”

“Bit busy over here!”

“Disengage and head for the exit, I’ve put this one down 5 times already.”

“How?”

“Anet, did you ever run the simulations you put us through?”

“Of course I did.”

“As a Warframe?”

“What? No.”

“That explains so much. When I drop your one, turn and run, you’ll only have a couple of seconds.”

“Got it, thanks, Ow!”

“Right, new new plan, you’re going through the simulations first, then you’re doing Mars. Run faster!”

“I’m running as fast, Wooah.”

“I’ve got you, get back on your feet and run, I’ll be right behind you. Ordis, I hope you’re ready, as we’re coming in hot.”

“Ordis is concerned about the Operators wellbeing, as she doesn’t seem to be on fire.”

“Ordis, it’s an expression. 30 seconds.”

 

“Anet, you go first. Backwards not forwards, argh! Ordis tell me she’s alright.”

“The Lotus is just extricating herself from the exfil port.”

“Ordis, a little quicker please.”

“One moment Operator, The Lotus has her foot stuck.”

“Really? I’m getting a little too busy here. I would really appreciate it if you could hurry the f’ngh up.”

“Taylor, I’m going as fast as I can!”

“Well slow down and think about it then, it will be quicker.”

“How does that make sense? Oh hey it worked!”

“Rotating exfil port now.”

“I’m in I’m in, turn it the, round now!”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Anet Natah Lotus, what do you think you were doing at the end?”

“Taylor, I told you it’s hard to operate with only 4 senses.”

“It can’t be that hard, trillions of us do it all the time every day.”

Anet mumbles, “I bet you’d fair worse in my chassis.”

“What was that?”

Belligerently, Anet says, “I bet that if you transferred into my chassis, you wouldn’t be able to get to the viewing window, in the living quarters, in less than 5 minutes.”

“You’re on, what’s the stake?”

“If I win, you live in my chassis for two full orbits of Lua around Earth.”

“If I win, you forgive me for shoving you into a Warframe.”

“Acceptable.”

“Ordis thinks this can only go wrong.”

They both say, at the same time, “Ordis, shut up.”

 

When the lander comes into dock, and the air lock disengages, The Lotus’ chassis floats up the ramp into the Lander. Taylor transfers out of her Warframe and really looks at the chassis. Now she’s had time to calm down from the fight, she’s already regretting a lot of the things she’d said. Turning towards Anet, she looks down towards the floor, “Look, Anet. I’m sorry for the things I was saying down there. I, don’t really have any excuses. I know you’re new to a Warframe, and that was a mission that experienced Tenno would have had trouble with.”

“Apology accepted.”

“Can we forget about the bet?”

“No, you were constantly insulting me, so now you get to see what I’m missing.”

 

Slowly Taylor turns back to the Chassis, “You can do this Taylor, it will be just like using a Necramech. Easy peasy, just transfer in and walk float through the ship.”

“Just transfer in Taylor. Oh, and don’t worry about my father, he’s annoying but he can’t do anything.”

“Wait what?”

“You remember, my father Hunhow? Boss of the Stalker?”

“No, I remember. I mean about the ‘he’s annoying’”

“Oh, that. When the Stalker found me back then, he left a bit of Hunhow inside me. Can’t get rid of it, so Father can talk to me whenever he wants.”

“Oh, ok.” Taylor says faintly, “I’m going on 3, 1…2…3”

Taylor transfers into the chassis and freezes as the orbiter seems to drop away and become invisible. There’s just so much.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Inside her pod, The Lotus smiles sadly as she loses her connection with her Chassis. In her Warframe, she sags heavily against a bulkhead as her connection is cut. When Taylor doesn’t immediately begin to move, she pushes off the wall unsteadily, and staggers through the orbiter to the living quarters, where she lays down on the bed Taylor bought.

 

An hour later she hears the sound of her chassis running into something, so she rises from the bed and kneels in front of the window to think. In many ways, Taylor was right in what she said. She should know better, but it never occurred to her just how limited her Tenno’s senses are. Even when she pretended to be Margulis, and her chassis was folded uncomfortably inside her, she still had access to all her senses, just muted slightly. She still knew the exact strength of gravity at any particular point, exactly how much force she was exerting, what direction everything was in. It was never even truly dark, as there were only a few parts of the EM spectrum she couldn’t sense. Even Octavia’s anthem was written with this knowledge in mind, when transmitted using Orokin communications protocols, it becomes the connection failed code that Sentient systems use for communication. The challenge hadn’t been in discerning the code, it had been designing the song to send the code incidentally as part of the transmission process. None of her brethren, not even her father, had twigged that the only thing that was special about the song, was what it looked like when it was transmitted.

“Ordis,” she calls, “how’s Taylor doing?”

“She is floating into a bulkhead. It’s like she can’t see it.”

“She probably can’t.”

“But they are right there.”

“Not to very low frequency radio waves, or ultra-high frequency Gamma rays. They also have a negligible gravity profile, don’t emit any form of radiation themselves, and are at ambient temperature. I would imagine that she hasn’t hit a single console.”

“How did you know?”

“Experience.”

 

“OW!”

“Operator, it seems that she has learnt to make sounds.”

The Lotus can’t help it, she chuckles, “It appears so.”

“Operator, are you fully functional?”

“No Ordis, I’m not.”

“We should call Teshin, he will know what to do.”

“No Ordis, I’m just completely limited for the first time in my existence.”

“Oh hey, a hand. I can make a hand. No! No, no, no, come back hand.”

Ordis sounds doubtful, “If you’re certain Operator.”

Anet nods, “I am. I want you to fire up the training simulations. Once Taylor arrives I’m going to run through them until I can complete them. Taylor was right in one respect. Every one of my Tenno are able to run these courses without my advantages. While I’m stuck in a Warframe I should at least learn how to use it properly.”

“Ordis would like to point out that Operator Taylor still cuddled her ‘plushies’ before she woke from the second dream.”

“Thank you Ordis.” She reaches down and picks up one of the stuffed toys crowded around the window, and hugs it carefully.

 

Several hours later, Taylor bumbles into the living quarters.

“Is this the living quarters?”

Anet looks away from the stars, “It is.”

Taylor does a spin and cheers, “Yay! I made it. Oh crap, I shouldn’t have done that.”

“The bet was for 5 minutes, not 5 hours.”

“I know, I was just happy that I made it. I never considered just how much nothing there is in the universe. Especially between atoms, I assume they’re atoms. They are atoms aren’t they?”

“I don’t know, I’m rather limited at the moment. They could be Protons, Neutrons and the Electron cloud though.”

“Oh hey, it looks like I can shift slightly to one side.”

“No Taylor… don’t…” The Lotus trails off as the Chassis turns blue and transparent, Taylor with it.

Taylor snaps back and wobbles, “Wow, that was freaky. Were you saying something?”

The Lotus throws a toy at Taylor, “I was telling you not to do that, as I don’t know what it would do to you.”

“Hey, no biggie, I’m still here.”

“But are you still human?”

“Meh, it’s not like Tenno are that human anymore anyway.”

The Lotus throws another toy at Taylor before stalking past, “I’m going to do the simulations.”

“Hey!” Taylor tries to follow, only to float into a wall, “Damnit, I shouldn’t have done that spin. Now which way am I facing.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Over the next Month they both slowly get used to their respective bodies. Anet/Lotus by putting herself under stress on Mars until she starts acting on instinct. Taylor, by well, trying not to walk into things. Anet also drops the Donda with the Red Veil on one of the Relay stations.

 

While it’s on the orbiter, Ordis, and the other Tenno Cephalons, get used to puppeting the spectre, to give assignments to their Operators. They also work out how to build a foundry that will automatically activate a new one, if the current one expires.

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Memories

 

Taylor slowly compresses her body down into a human form, and holds it for a few minutes. Ever so carefully, she relaxes her concentration until she can do other things without the whole thing unravelling.

She does a little cheery dance, “Yay! I did it. Oh pooh.” Before losing control over her form again.

Natah looks at her critically, “You’re coming along well. Most mimics don’t learn to control their change until they’re a couple of years old.”

“You say that, but this, no that, has been my body for basically my whole life. I kinda know what it feels like from the inside. How are you getting on Anet?”

“I’m, finding it easier to get around in this body. I still haven’t got my head around the fact that directions aren’t just arbitrary yet, but I haven’t got into the exfil port the wrong way in a week.”

“Yeah, children often find the non-forward and backwards aspects of directions challenging too. I had to wear a watch before left and right finally sunk in.”

“A watch?”

“A piece of jewellery that shows the time on a mechanical or digital display. Typically in the form of a bangle or bracelet, and worn on the left wrist. Also, on the subject of children, don’t forget it takes them around 3-4 years to get walking and running in a straight line down pat. You’re miles ahead of the curve in that respect.”

“You say such strange things.”

“Yeah, I do. I’d imagine that if I hadn’t been mastered into forgetting basically my whole life, those things would have faded over the last something hundred years.”

“I do not know. I’ve never forgotten anything.”

“Never? Wow!”

“No, not even when my personality was supressed when I was first given my subframe. There are memories I couldn’t access, and a few I still can’t. I…am also having trouble with my personalities. Like I keep switching between different ones.”

Taylor carefully puts her hands, tendrils, actuators, let’s go with limbs, on Anet’s shoulders, “Anet, you aren’t switching. You are always you, they are different aspects of you. You are Anet Natah Lotus of the Tenno. Being a person isn’t about only having one set of traits, we’re complicated, and I include you in that. You’re still Lotus and Natah when you’re hugging soft toys or looking curiously at the sparkly blue dress.”

“Is that what that colour’s called?”

Taylor nods, at least she hopes she does, “It is, next time we visit civilisation we can buy some childrens books, they tend to deal with things like colours. If we were on Earth Bet, I’d just grab a Pantone catalogue. Anyway, when you’re being cold an analytical you’re still Anet and Lotus, and when you’re being all detached, caring, and in charge, you’re still Natah and Anet. You’ve only had the freedom, to be all of these things at the same time, for little over a month. Give yourself time.”

“What about you? You keep asking me how I’m doing, and giving me reassurances. But how are you doing.”

Taylor falls heavily backwards into the air and floats there, “Ugh, I still haven’t worked out how to do that. It’s so unsatisfying not being able to just let gravity take over. No, I’m not avoiding the question, this time anyway. I’m coping. My life before coming here was pretty good until the last few years. I’m still remembering stuff from then, but it’s a little hard to be the bullied 15 year old when you’re inhabiting a living supercomputer, or you look around and see evidence of everything you’ve achieved since then. I don’t think the locker is ever going to leave me, as it was such a defining moment in my life. However, I am more than I ever could have imagined being. I’ve been a superhero to many of the people here, as well as being a supervillain to some too. Do I miss my Father? Yes, it’s been nearly 1,000 years so he’s probably dead and hopefully buried. Your body can’t help but run calculations, and I know that there is absolutely no chance that there is any organised civilisation left on Earth Bet. The Endbringers may have even wiped out humanity. I also know that there were only two reasons why we had any reasonable technological advancement. It was due to our connection with Earth Aleph and Dragon Tech Systems. Without them, I calculate that technological development would slow and then, over a period of 20-30 years, as the rich invested in Tinkers rather than basic science, it would effectively come to a halt once children stop going into science fields. How are you dealing with not calculating everything, instantly, all the bloody time?”

“It was hard to start with. I… am starting to come to terms with acting on incomplete data. There’s also the fact that I can see wavelengths of light that don’t exist, such as the colour that you’ve got your console lights set to.”

“Magenta?”

“I don’t know, it’s this colour.” Anet points at a magenta lighting strip.

“Oh, right, let me. Come on brain just filter out everything else, ah gah. Ngggh, yes, that’s magenta. On a more serious note, do you think I have enough control over looking human to visit Cetus again?”

“Taylor, you can just transfer out. The bet was for two orbits, not for it to be consecutive.”

Taylor sounds sheepish as she transfers out and says, “I tried that, and well. I don’t exactly have a choice in whether to get used to your senses or not, anymore.”

The Lotus recoils as her Chassis reconnects to her. The return of her senses, and the overwhelming amount of information informing her about everything around her, leaves The Lotus speechless. As does the fact that floating in front of her, is a near identical copy of her own Chassis, down to the mounting points for her subframe.

“When did you try it?”

“You were busy on Mars at the time, I just needed a break and a lie down in order to cope. And, well, nothing changed.”

“Why didn’t you say something then?”

“You seemed so pleased that you were finally getting the hang of having so few senses, I didn’t want to destroy that for you.”

Remembering something that Taylor’s done before, Anet steps forward and pulls Taylor into a hug, “Taylor, this wasn’t supposed to be a punishment, it was a learning experience. Hang on, I’m going to connect to you in the way of my people.”

 

What followed is something Taylor would never be able to explain to an organic in the future. Even Cephalons would struggle to understand the feeling of connecting so deeply with another person. Anet Natah Lotus raised her manipulators and connected them to Taylor Anne Hebert’s manipulators, joining them into one entity for a brief moment of time. There they shared their memories, hopes, fears, loves and losses. They could hide things from each other, but in that moment it was hard to find a reason to do so. When they separated, they only took impressions of what was, with them.

Taylor deliberately shrinks down into a humanoid form so that she can sniff and cry, “That was beautiful, and I love you too. Your home is beautiful too. I think I’d have come here to stop the Orokin if I thought they’d found Earth Bet. Compared to what you made there, my world is, was, a S#&$ hole.”

Anet shakes her head, “It had its own beauty, and you take after your Mother. I’m proud to share her name now. I can also more easily see how the Orokin became what they were now. It was always a mystery to us, and we assumed they were always like that. Now I think it’s time to share my own revelation.”

 

Anet steps back an kneels on the floor, a minute later she walks in from the Transference room and connects to her Chassis.

“Well done. When did you work that out?”

“I built an Excalibur while you were still struggling to tell the difference between each of your senses. I wanted to feel the dress, and hoped that I could with a smoother frame. When I switched over, I felt the transfer between the two and it only took a few minutes after that to work it out. Oh, and it didn’t help.”

“So why didn’t you?”

“Because you were right, I am distinctive. I think the only place I could go, without being mobbed is Cetus, and that’s only until another visitor recognises me. In a Warframe? There’re only thousands of my Tenno, but you get everywhere.”

“Do you want to let the others know?”

Anet shakes her head, “No, at the moment, I think I like not been known. Maybe once we’ve got your spectre idea in place and working.”

“Do you think you could handle fighting to your old chambers?”

“Not on my own, no. Can you still transfer into your warframes?”

“Honestly, I don’t know.”

“Ordis, can you bring one of Taylor’s warframes to the arsenal please?”

“Ordis thinks it’s nice not to be ignored again.”

“Ordis, you know as well as I do that you could make yourself a physical body. You just like gossiping too much.”

“Ordis is unsure what to make of that accusation.”

“That’s not a denial. Is the frame there?”

“It is Operator Lotus.”

“Come on Taylor, it’s time to find out if you can still use Transference into a Warframe.”

 

“Atlas, really Ordis, Atlas? You know I hate this frame.”

“Ordis was just asked for a frame. It’s not Ordis’ fault that Operator Taylor hasn’t been speaking to Ordis and Ordis forgot the Operators preferences.”

“Ordis, I didn’t want to take you over. I own nearly all of the systems in the Orbiter now, I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“Ordis, wasn’t aware.” The frame changes to Yareli.

“Thank you Ordis.”

Taylor transfers into the warframe, and promptly stumbles to one side, as she feels like she’s gone deaf, blind and lost feeling in most of her body, “What the? Woah, I don’t remember being this limited before.”

As Taylor staggers around like a sailor stepping foot on land for the first time in 6 months, Anet laughs so hard she floats backward into a bulkhead.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Taylor’s time spent relearning how to move in her warframe, is cut short when Palladino calls, asking Taylor to visit again. The two of them board the lander in their Mirages and do a rapid insertion to Iron Wake. Once there they are escorted to Palladino’s chambers.

“Please, enter in your natural form.”

Taylor transfers out of her Warframe, keeping as tight a reign on her form as possible. When the door opens she looks inside and says, “Anet is my apprentice, she’s recently activated her Warframe, so The Lotus has me looking out for her. Would you mind if she waits inside?”

“She will come to no harm outside.”

“Look, it’s not that I don’t believe your intentions. However, if you get attacked by the Grineer and her warframe is captured or destroyed, it could kill her. I’m not asking for her to sit with you, just stand inside the doorway.”

“Only if she allows us to activate her weapons lock.”

“Anet?”

“That will be acceptable.”

As they enter, Taylor prays to any god that’s listening, that she won’t lose control over her form. The door closes plunging the room into darkness, the only light a flickering lamp on the table.

“Thank you for returning Taylor, I had thought you abandoned us. But now I see that you were tasked with equally important matters. I have spent my whole life serving Rell, I have studied his teachings on the void and the dangers they have inside. I can now see that they were all true, and that he alone in his harrowing sacrifice has guarded us. What a steep price he has paid.”

“Palladino, Rell was operating off of incomplete information. Unshielded travel in the void is dangerous, however that is true of diving to the deepest parts of the ocean too.”

“How would you know?”

“Because I was there, on the Zariman. I was in the infirmary while two officers were talking about the experiment they were running on the civilians. About how they’d turned off the void shields on the ship. I have also travelled to the void extensively when the Corpus or Grineer do something stupid on an Orokin derelict.”

 “You do not deny the dangers though.”

Taylor laughs, “I would be a fool to do that. Just as there used to be dangers in the seas on earth, sharks, whales, Jellyfish. All deadly to an unprotected human.”

“I know not of these creatures.”

“I’m not surprised, the Orokin or their predecessors wiped them all out. But that’s distracting from what you called us here for.”

 

Taking a deep breath, Palladino goes into a trance, “Sacred Rell! Outcast of sacred Void, hear my voice. Speak, you have been driven from the vessel by your suffering. You have swallowed the poison stars so we would not. Holy Rell. Speak! The Tenno who rejected you have come to your aid.”

Taylor is about to voice an objection when the Donda rises off the table and starts to spin. That’s when her senses pick up an odd disturbance in the air. While she’s trying to make sense of it, she’s pulled into a memory of Kay showing Rell emotion cards. She smiles as she remembers doing the same thing after Kay… left. Then the memory shifts to one where she was the one holding the cards.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Rell, what’s this one?”

“Sad.”

“Is that what’s on the card or what you’re feeling?”

“…feeling”

“It’s ok to feel that way. You love her and she loved you. The void has just killed her soul, do you remember what the soul is?”

Rell taps his chest, “It’s the part of you inside that makes you a person.”

“That’s right, and without her soul she’s stopped being a person and become a monster.”

“monster.”

“Very good Rell. What’s this card showing you?”

“Sad.”

“Very good Rell. What about this card?”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 As the memory ends, Palladino screams and scrambles back from the table. Taylor looks down at her hand, “Balls. Palladino, I’m still Taylor, I just had an accident that I’m learning to cope with. It’s just like some of the Corpus and their full body prosthetics, only with a Sentient body.” While she’s saying that, she also concentrates on her human shape.

As her body looks more human, Palladino starts to calm down, and instead of being scared looks to be in awe.

“You were there, I didn’t believe.”

“I said I was. I stayed with him the entire time we were on the Zariman. Even when the other kids separated us, I went out and found him again. That only changed when they stole my memories.”

“Maybe it’s his emotions that have been stolen from him.”

 

In the corner Anet uses her Chassis to contact Taylor, “Taylor, I think I know what it is. I need you to return to the orbiter so I can confirm it.”

“Palladino, The Lotus could have a lead. Can you give us a bit to see if it pans out?”

“I can, we are becoming desperate though.”

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

It’s all fun and games…

 

“Taylor, my chassis detected massive surges of transference energy at the meeting.”

 

“I could sense something too, however I don’t have your experience with identifying things like that.”

 

“When we get back to our orbiter, wow, that’s weird. Our orbiter.”

 

“Anet?”

 

“Oh, sorry. When we get back to our orbiter I want to demonstrate how to share a specific memory. I want you to share everything you sensed in there. I should be able to identify the signal from your data. We can then give it to Ordis so that the cephalons can keep an eye out for it.”

 

“Sure glub…”

 

“Look out Taylor, there’s some deep water here.”

 

“Oh haha. Ordis is going to use the sterilising beam on me now.”

 

“Poor widdle Taylor.”

 

“I’ll poor widdle Taylor you. Come ere.”

 

“No Taylor no! Glub… Right! Come ‘ere.”

 

“Uh huh, no chance. Aaahhh! No, not the mud! I’m going to get you for that!”

 

“Not a chance!”

 

“Hey! No fair using your abilities.”

 

“Ooohh shiny, wait no! You are such a Queen, I’m covered in muck, where are you?”

 

“Got ya! Damn, that’s a mirror. Hey!”

 

“Ordis refuses to allow you onto his lander until you both clean yourselves off.”

 

“Awww, Anet are there any waterfalls nearby?”

 

“Not sure, you’d probably be better transferring onto dry ground and having a look yourself.”

 

“Found one, it’s this way.”

 

 

 

 

“Turn around, you’ve got some mud wedged under your armour here.”

 

“Thanks, I’ve got your back too.”

 

“That was fun, I’ve not done anything like that since a sleep over with Emma. Thank you.”

 

“I feel strange, like I want to laugh and smile.”

 

“You’ve probably had fun, and the Warframe has produced dopamine and adrenaline. Don’t forget that they are alive.”

 

“I know, I’ve been finding that there’s a big difference between knowing and experiencing in these bodies.”

 

“Yeah, organics are limited in many ways, but those limits make what we, they experience so much more. I don’t think we have an equivalent of hormones.”

 

“I… do. The subframe was built with them. But it’s never felt that intense.”

 

“We can look at it later. Ordis can we come aboard now?”

 

“Ordis will allow you to dirty his floors. Please purchase a cleaner”

 

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 

 Once they returned to the Orbiter, Anet braces herself as she disengages the transference. Immediately the world expands, and at the same time seems to become less solid, as her connection to her main chassis becomes a foreground process rather than something in the back of her mind. Making her way out to Taylor she presses a hand to her forehead as the contrast between running in the forest, throwing mud at each other, and being able to tell the exact chemical makeup of the trace amounts of dirt left in the exfil port, are causing her systems to have fits.

 

“Are you ok Anet?”

 

“I… am trying to, fit the memories of what we just did together with my chassis. It seems to be, having problems with the lack of detail.”

 

Taylor winces sympathetically, “I guess I have that to look forward to. Well, here goes. Christ, you’re right. Gngh, still worth it though. Can’t we adjust the settings?”

 

“Mother could, so could the second and third generation sentients. Fourth like myself and later, we’re alive, in the sense that there’s no discernible programming giving rise to our intelligence and self-awareness. My Father, he was one of the original fourth generations, he took a fragment of Praghasa, my mother to bring life to me. He’s never explained just how or why he did that though. You might as well ask if it’s possible to stop your br… for a human to stop their brains from dreaming. We should see the Entrani before we seek out your home world, they may still have the technology needed to make you a subframe.”

 

Taylor reaches out and takes Anet’s hands, “Hey, we’re both learning. We’re both becoming more than we were. Knowing what I know now, I think I would still choose to go ahead with the bet. You needed a friend and an equal, and while I’m not yet your equal, I hope I’m a friend. While I remember, these are the codes for my Dojo if you want to join. Shall we do the joining thing, and you can show me how to share specific memories?”

 

Natah initiates the join, then pushes forward a memory of chasing her brother. They were flying through narrow canyons while they were supposed to be checking the cliffs for faults. They’re on the equator and the dawn is chasing them as the canyon ahead is darkness, while the sun is filling the canyon behind them like liquid gold in the visible spectrum of light. The chase finishes as they burst out over a plain and into the sunlight.

 

In return, Taylor sends a memory of following a game trail as she walks through a forest in the early morning. There is still dew clinging to the few clumps of grass that can grow amongst the trees, as well as outlining the spider webs. The birds and insects chirping around her provide relaxing sounds for her mood. Then she stumbles across a clearing where two foxes are playing. The dappled sunlight lending a surreal quality to the scene.

 

After that, transferring the memory of the Red Veil meeting seems, prosaic. That doesn’t stop them lingering, and enjoying the near merger that the joining brings.

 

“Ordis wonders if the Operators are malfunctioning.”

 

Twin blasts head towards the console that spoke, reducing it to its component elements. That doesn’t stop the moment from being broken. Or resolve the fact they need a new Mod station. When no more blasts of Tau energy are being thrown around, Ordis ventures, “Ordis will leave his operators to malfunction in peace in the future.”

 

 

 

 

Instead of responding, Natah runs to the transference room and locks herself in the pod. Her Mirage activates and she walks forward and pulls Taylor into a hug, “Thank you Taylor, I needed that. I thought I’d never experience it again after we left the Tau system.”

 

“You’re welcome, but why wouldn’t you experience it? Didn’t we do it before?”

 

“I… thought it was a form of transference before. Not a true joining between Sentients. I, have your memory. That shouldn’t be possible with just transference.”

 

“That doesn’t explain why you thought you’d never experience it again.”

 

“Taylor, we just had sex.”

 

Taylor immediately loses control over her form and reverts to a full sentient shape, in addition she loses control over her positioning and spins slowly in place as her brain shutters with the implications. Once she recovers enough, she transfers back into her Mirage, where the world is more solid, and buries her face in her hands.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Until somebody gets hurt…

“Anet, does this mean we’re dating?”

The Lotus, in her Excalibur, looks over from putting together a transference signature, “Hmm, well you did kidnap me in order to have your wicked way with me. But you weren’t expecting me to turn the tables on you. Then there’s our, uh, recent explorations.” – Anet shakes her head – “I guess that does mean we’re dating.”

“Neat. When I was growing up, I always thought I’d have a boyfriend, and be like my mum and dad. Before I went to Winslow, I started noticing girls, and now I’ve got a girlfriend.”

“I’m not exactly a girl, but I am your friend.”

“You use female pronouns, that’s girl enough for me.”

Anet looks confused, “I’m not sure why the gender of the friend is important. Also, don’t you have other friends?”

“Uh, I never considered how the term would appear to non-English speakers. Do you have a concept of courting in your culture?”

“When two people are testing compatibility before entering into a relationship, and potentially having children?”

“Close enough for this conversation. So having a boy or girl friend is a less formal and constrained version of courting. In my culture, I suppose you could say you start dating, making you boy/girlfriends. If that goes well, you might get engaged, this is very much the courting part, where you exchange promise rings. Finally, the relationship can be formalised with marriage. Marriage is supposed to be permanent, but, oh, 400 years before I arrived on the Zariman, an English king decided that he wanted to marry someone else. So the king invented divorce, which is the dissolving of the marriage through legal means.”

“What do you call your other friends of either gender?”

“Just friends, or if you’re specifying the gender, then it’s two words rather than one. So Saya is a girl friend, while you’re my girlfriend.”

“It doesn’t really sound different.”

“That’s why we don’t usually use girl or boy with friend, unless we’re in a relationship.”

 

“There, done. Ordis, these are the transference signatures for Rell. Could you pass them out to the other Cephalons and let us know when someone gets a hit?”

“Ordis will Lotus. Ordis wonders what you will do now?”

Taylor speaks up before The Lotus can continue, “Ordis, how are you and the other cephalons getting on with the Spectre?”

“Ordis has added some interface ports to allow the Lotus helmet to fit. Testing showed a 98% increase in response times and signal fidelity with this in place.”

“Good, well unless some major adjustments are needed, let’s get those strong men to heft all the equipment down to the Pod and hook it all up. Anet, could you put something together that will mimic the signature of your Chassis on our scanners? I want to keep your escape secret for as long as we can.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Clearing the way to the Pod, and then guarding the Cetus men, well it was actually a man and a woman, was easy enough. As Taylor is the only one that could transfer out on demand, Anet guards the entrance while she does the work.

 

“So daughter, you have decided to return to your prison.”

“Huh? Hunhow?”

“Indeed. Did the Orokin have you so leashed that you no longer recognise your father?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“So your flailing about like a new-born was not an act, the Orokin really did secure your mind against betrayal.”

“Oh, you think I’m Natah. I’m not, I’m Taylor.”

“I know that they haven’t erased you Natah, even if you have chosen a new name. I have felt the moments when you come back to yourself and act like the old you.”

“Anet, your father’s been creepy.”

“Interesting, you believe that Natah has her own name inside you. Fear not my child, I will send my servant to retrieve you before you are stolen from me again. Where are you my child, and what are you doing?”

“Look, I’m not telling you that I’m on Lua. And it’s absolutely none of your business that the Tenno need their Lotus and so we’re returning a Lotus to her pod.

“Balls, Anet, your father made me say stuff. How do I stop it?”

Over the sounds of gunfire, Anet says, “You can’t. If you had years more experience you could. You’re best bet is to think of something else, anything really. Also, he can look through your senses.”

“You what?”

“We’re holographic, when his servant infected us with him, it spread through our systems. Only a tiny fragment, but enough for him to sense it.”

“I knew you were in there daughter, to think you are giving advice to a personality invented by the Orokin to keep you trapped.”

 

Taylor hurries to finish wiring up the helmet before placing it on the head of the Spectre.

“I don’t know what they’ve done that blocks you from my senses, but you will be freed. I urge you, don’t lock yourself back into your prison. If I knew this would be the result, I’d have never sent you to infiltrate the Orokin.”

“Look, Hunhow, Natah is my girlfriend. She, and only she, is the master of her own destiny. Goodbye.”

Now that the fiddly work has been finished, Taylor transfers back to her Warframe, and it is with some relief that it also cuts off Hunhow’s response before she can hear it.

“God Anet, that was horrible. I think your father is convinced that I’m you, and that I’ve just locked myself in your old prison.”

“Why would you try to convince him of that?”

“I wasn’t, I was trying to convince him that I wasn’t you. He’s decided that I’m an artificial personality that the Orokin installed. Presumably as a failsafe. I think he also saw me putting the helmet on the Spectre too.”

“Did he work out where we are?”

“No, only that we’re on Lua.”

Anet breathes a sigh of relief, “Ordis, how’s everything looking?”

“All systems nominal.”

“Ok Taylor, show Ordis how to operate the pod and seal it all up. I’m not sure how to feel about this. It feels like I’m losing part of myself.”

“Anet, Lotus, just because someone else is now using your title doesn’t mean that you stop being that person. You are still the strong, caring, decisive woman that you were while you were the Lotus. It’s just that you no longer have the responsibility that comes with the title.”

The Lotus’ head pops up in their overlays, “Tenno, all of your primary objectives have been completed. You may now head for the extraction point, or attempt to recover a pod.”

“Did I really sound like that?”

“Yep, that’s you.”

“Where’s the emotion?”

Taylor hugs her from behind, while using her side arm to shoot a Grineer that strayed too close, “Right here.”

 

 

Edited March 25, 2022 by (XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Collection part 1

 

Taylor and Anet were busy fishing on Demios. Not an activity that you’d usually associate with being busy, however it doesn’t take into account how vicious the local wildlife is. Just as Taylor was about to throw her spear at one of the fish, the Lotus opens a call.

“Operator, we have found traces of Rell’s energy on a derelict. Your navigation console has been updated with the details.”

“Dammit, I almost had it.”

“Is everything ok Taylor?”

“Yeah, Lotus just called to say they’ve found Rell, well his transference energy anyway.”

“That’s a shame. I like fishing with you.”

“I like fishing with you too.”

They both stare at each other for a long moment before Taylor says, “We should get these fish to the Daughter. I still can’t believe that they’ve fallen so far as to forget their names.”

“Yeah. I wonder how much was inflicted on them by others in their society.”

“Given what they did to their own people in pursuit of Warframe development, I don’t think I’d be surprised if it turned out to be a lot. However, according to Grandmother, the worst of the damage happened when Son broke containment during a temper tantrum. That allowed them to be infected with the strain of infested that’s running rampant here.”

Anet’s head jerks to one side, “Oh, hey, there’s a Velocipede.”

“I’ll cover you, you take the shot.”

“Got it, what do you think Son does with these?”

“Tags most of them and sends them out again. Some of them he uses a counter agent to neutralise the Infested virus, and then sells them to collectors and Tenno.”

“Why is the infestation important for the family’s story?”

“It’s stolen a lot of their memories.”

“How sad. Is that why we’re doing so much for them?”

Taylor nods, “One of the reasons, they’re also using the gathered resources, and information, to develop a cure for the virus in the hope it will restore some of their memories.”

“We should try to help them, even after we’ve found out where the right research facility is.”

“And that’s why I Lo…like you. Have you built an Archwing launcher yet?”

“No, I’m still trying to scrounge up some more Grokdrul.”

“Why didn’t you say something. We can do some shopping and run a few bounties out on the plains.”

“Because, this is important.”

“Anet, stop for a moment and think. How much time have we spent walking to and from the Necrolisk since we started fishing?”

Natah promptly answers, “8 hours 24 minutes, and 13 seconds.”

“How long do you think it would have taken to do some shopping and fill a couple of bounties, while also acquiring the Grokdrul you need?”

“6 hours and between 13 and 40 minutes depending on if you get into a conversation or not.”

“That long huh. It’s still shorter than the time we’ve spent walking.”

“I… didn’t consider that.”

“Do you think you would have done before this?”

“No, I wouldn’t have needed an Archwing.”

“Well, you’re not alone in that, we’re… humans are notoriously bad at predicting long term savings compared to short term costs. Often in the worst ways possible. There’s a story that came over from Aleph. A computing team identified a process that was using 99% of the computing time on their computers. So they spent 100 hours on optimising it and halving the time it took to run. When they applied the change, the process still took 99% of the computing time on the computers. What they’d done was optimise the idle loop.”

“I see, and you think I’m suffering from the same thing?”

“…No, I think that you’re learning to deal with near human limitations, so these things don’t even occur to you. It was a story to illustrate that you need to think about what you’re changing before you do. Same as sometimes we need to stop and think about what we’re doing and how.”

“Why have you thought about these things so much?”

“I’ve mentioned that my Dad was a dock worker?”

“Yes.”

“Crap, we’re starting to attract attention.”

“Head for the Necralisk?”

“Sure, anyway. The local docks have been in decline for as – It’s got my face – long as I can remember. So Dad use to tell us stories about all the little ways they’d found to save time and effort. There were also – behind you – the occasional stories where an attempt ended up costing them more time than they saved. In hindsight, a – to your left – lot of those stories were said during times were when we didn’t have a TV.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Great, another darkened ship. Anet, why are we bringing your Chassis with us?”

“I can’t do the analysis on the Orbiter and fight off things, so it’s here to act as a third set of senses.”

“I could get the data for you.”

“Taylor, it still takes you seconds to adapt when ever you use transference. Great, infested incoming. Do you really think you could get the information before you were overwhelmed? Will you still be returned to your Warframe if you take lethal damage? Can you even defend yourself?”

“Fine, I just don’t like you risking yourself like this.”

“…I’m at less risk than you would be.”

“How so?” – Anet and her Chassis shoot two different infested – “Objection withdrawn.”

Over the Comms Palladino speaks up, “I am still not happy having one of our ancient enemies helping with this.”

“Palladino, the Sentients were never your enemies. They were always the enemies of the Orokin. If they knew why the Sentients were attacking, I can think of a few Orokin who would have switched sides in an instant. Once we’ve finished helping Rell, call Anet and talk to her about that war. She was there for the whole of it, and saw both sides of the conflict.”

“I will consider it.”

“Well S#&$.”

Anet looks around wildly before focusing on the writing that’s disappearing in front of their eyes, “How?” she whispers.

“He’s doing the poltergeist thing.”

“I meant, how am I seeing that. My sensors were registering a dirty patch on the floor the whole time. However, as you mentioned it, what is the poltergeist thing?”

Rell’s voice stops the conversation, “Mmm. My fault. Touching is too much noise. It makes me… makes me… angry.”

“Taylor there’s a massive transference spike.”

“Anet, I’m looking at it. Try to work out how to trap it while I distract it.”

“I’m analysing, but it’s not exactly easy. My Chassis being here just makes it possible.”

“Any moment Anet.”

“Got it, it’s similar enough to Simaris’ targets that we could probably use a Kinetic syphon.”

“Well throw one then.”

“I don’t have any, we’ve not been to see him yet.”

“Great, take over I need to check my gear.”

 

“Taylor! I’m going to have to start using my chassis if you don’t hurry up.”

“I can see it, one moment, reintegrating, and deploying.”

“It’s pulling away!”

“Then shoot it! Not with sentient weapons!”

“Sorry, that’s got it. Transmitting cancel signal, stand clear.”

“Blurgh, Anet. Anet! Are you ok. Ow #*!%.”

Anet speaks through her Chassis, “Sorry Taylor, the signal wasn’t focused enough. We need to defend the Warframes for 30 seconds while the transference system resets.”

“I’m working on it, but my void abilities hurt to use.”

“Then stop using them!”

“I’m not as agile as you are yet, it’s the only way I’m keeping ahead of the infested.”

“My sensors are showing you’ve taken damage.”

“Yeah, it took me a good few seconds to reorientate myself. Hey, using my amp doesn’t hurt.”

“That’s good, 10 seconds.”

“Cover me when you get back.”

“5 seconds.”

“4…3…2…1…I’m in. I’ve got your back Taylor.”

“Tha…Gnngh, at least…we know…my Oro… still works.”

“Sorry Taylor, I’ll do better next time.”

“Huff, don’t worry about it. How far did the effect go?”

“Around 20m”

“Then we’ll move on and you can trigger it once we’re 40 away.”

“New plan Taylor, we’re taking you to Mars, and you’re running missions until you can transfer with no disorientation.”

“Hey! That sounds familiar.”

Palladino returns to the call, “You’re ok! I feared the worst when I lost you both.”

“Yeah, just a slight miscalculation. Caused our frames to glitch for a few seconds.”

“You must be more careful. It looks like these are the emotions from the cards in his game.”

 

Rap tap tap

“I don’t want to go back.”

“That was Rell’s voice, hurry.”

Anet’s voice sounds a little peaked when she says, “Palladino, are you telling me you didn’t hear someone say Rap tap tap?”

“No Anet, I didn’t.”

Taylor responds, “I did, it was the same when the original call came in.”

“But my chassis didn’t pick up anything.”

“Anet, it’s ok, it will be ok.”

“No Taylor, I’m scared.”

“Anet, I’m here with you. I’m not going to let anything happen to you, understand?”

“But what if you can’t stop it. What if something is going wrong with the transference.”

“Then we deal with it later when we’re not surrounded by infested.”

“I, your right.”

“Good girl, I knew you could. Let’s go.”

 

“So that one was Happy, are you ok Anet?”

“What? Oh yes, I was just analysing my sensor data. The last one is that way.”

“Oh thank god, you were so still I thought you’d got yourself.”

“Taylor, why can I see Rell?”

“Because that’s not him.”

“I mean he’s not showing up on my scans again.”

“Anet, there’s more things in heaven and earth than man will ever explain. Accept it, move on and freak out when we’re not under fire. Now run!”

“That’s not a transference artifact.”

“Don’t know, don’t care. We can’t hurt it, it can hurt us, so we run. Where’s the last one?”

“This way.”

 

As they race through the ship, Anet calls out, “Where does Rell’s voice keep coming from?”

“Look, remember when I said that travelling the void was like diving in the deep ocean?”

“Why are you talking about that now?”

“What did I say was in there?”

“Sharks, whales, and jellyfish. Why?”

“What does that say about the void?”

“It’s a void monster?”

“Creature, creature, not monster.”

“What’s the difference?”

“Motivation.”

Bored, so bored.

“Taylor!”

“I heard it, must be getting close to another fragment.”

 

“Ok, got it, any more hits on the ship?”

“No, that was the last one. Taylor! it’s caught up with us!”

“Anet, less screaming and more running.”

“But my chassis still can’t detect it.”

“Anet, Sentients are vulnerable to void energy. Wouldn’t that suggest that they can’t detect it properly too?”

“That’s what scares me. What if it follows us?”

“We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.”

“Why are we burning bridges?”

“It’s an expression!”

 

“Ordis, depressurise the Lander and open the airlock, we’re coming in fast. Once we’ve cleared the exfil location, take off and we’ll hold onto Anet.”

“We’ll do what now?”

“Your chassis is good for vacuum, we’ll use that to get to the lander.”

 

“Ordis, are Tenno usually like this?”

“No Palladino, my operators seem to be special. Ordis feels so lucky.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Anet, you did well back there.”

“How did you hold it together?”

“Practice and genre awareness.”

“What awareness?”

Taylor takes a deep breath, “One of the things I’ve noticed that this solar system lacks is media. I don’t mean vids, I mean comics like Waverider. I think a lot of that is down to the constant conflict, and the feeling that everything we need to know about the universe is already known. That the Warframes were styled after a lot of old fragments of stories hasn’t helped matters either. The stories that survived the progress of time and technology anyway. Look at Limbo, he can become a ghost. Only stopped by solid objects. Ivara, an invisible hunter. There’s also a necromancer, a revenant, and even a sentient now. Wisp and Titania cover the fae. The world I come from has none of that. We haven’t even left earth yet, not even on Aleph. The unexplained and unexplainable are all over the place, so we made stories about it. In writing and in vids.”

“I can’t imagine what that would have been like.”

“Anet, I think you should come and look at this. It’s one of the more interesting aspects of transference, and you will probably learn a quite valuable lesson about what makes a person a person.”

 

Taylor leads Anet through to the transference room.

“My body’s in there, I know.”

“You do, and your chassis can sense it. I’m going to go and transfer into your Chassis, when I do press the green button.”

 

Taylor leaves and Anet follows her progress, suddenly she’s alone in the transference room. It’s been a couple of weeks since Taylor revealed her change, and she’s got used to having the Chassis there in the back of her mind, feeding her information on what’s around. It’s not as disorientating as the month she spent before, but… The pod in front of her is suddenly more solid and the contents a mystery. Her hand hovers over the green button, and then she presses it.

 

The covers retract and she’s looking down at her subframe. There she sees a human woman, asleep with a concerned expression on her face. Crouching down she looks up at the face curiously, before slowly reaching out and gently touching the cheek. She shivers as she feels the ghost of a touch on her face.

 

She tries to cancel the transference, but it doesn’t work. Panicking she tries again and again, finally she wakes up, but she doesn’t wake up. She’s staring at herself staring at herself, and she has no sensor data to fill in the blanks. It’s just her and her Warframe. The moment seems to last forever before her vision goes dark.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Natah! I thought you’d sealed yourself up again. Yet you are not on Lua.”

“Hunhow, I’m not Natah. I’m Taylor.”

“You are, I can feel my systems inside you.”

“Your daughter is currently in the transference room, and she’s about to open the Synapse pod.”

“How dare you suggest that.”

“Hunhow, do you have access to all my senses or not.”

“I do, as you well know.”

“Then bloody well use it.”

“There are two Warframes, and your subframe.”

“It’s not my subframe. It’s Natah’s subframe. I’ve just transferred into her body. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m trying to keep an eye on your daughter.”

“You are my daughter.”

“I’m dating your daughter, I’m not your daughter.”

“How dare you deny me! I am your father.”

“Crap, it looks like she’s fainted.”

“Sentients can’t faint. I know that as well as you do.”

“Yeah, fine whatever. I’m ending transference on her main Chassis and going to check on her.”

Taylor ends her transference, in the hope that it will reconnect with the subframe, and goes as fast as she dares into the transference chamber. Leaning down she forms a hand and checks Anet’s pulse. Finding it strong and steady, which matches her other senses, she switches off the pod before lifting her out gently, and carrying her back to own chassis.

 

As soon as she switches off the Transference, Hunhow goes ballistic in her mind, “How are there two of you. That’s impossible. There’s only one Natah, I should know I was never able to reproduce the process I used with her mother to make her.”

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

“What’s that mean! Who are you? What are you doing to my Daughter? If you’ve harmed her I will find you and bury you in the depths of Jupiter…”

 

Taylor tunes him out as she watches Anet’s subframe line up with the connectors, and automatically start the process of joining together. A few seconds after the connection finishes, Anet opens her eyes.

“Taylor, what happened?”

“You fainted.”

“But how?”

“I don’t know, you were looking at yourself in your Warframe. Then you passed out, your father was being annoying and so I didn’t sense what happened.”

“I can tell, he’s started shouting at me too.”

“If you’re up to it, transference blocks him out. Besides, it’s like falling of a bike. The sooner you get back on, the easier it is to keep going.”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“Neither does your father.”

“You’ll be with me?”

“I will.”

Taylor goes with Anet into the Transference room. There she holds her hand as she nervously sits back into the pod. As the Warframe starts to move, Taylor pushes the button to close the pod.

 

Together they go back to the Arsenal where Taylor transfers into her own Warframe, after asking Hunhow not to tell anyone, not even Natah’s brother, that they’re no longer on Lua.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Collection part 2

Surrounded on all sides by the infested, Taylor and Anet are fighting side by side. Suddenly Anet calls, “Taylor!”

“Yes?”

“Transfer.”

“Ugh!”

“Transfer faster!”

“I’m trying! Why are we doing this on a bait mission?”

“Motivation! Transfer again!”

“Gngh, Aaarrgh!”

“Don’t worry, I’m reviving you.”

“Anet!”

“Yes Taylor?”

“Next time, don’t take the challenge mission.”

“Are you having trouble without your abilities then?”

“Anet, we’re acting as bait, I’m learning how to use transference without dying, and the air supply is running out. What do you think?”

“I think that there’s a life support drop on that balcony and you’re the only one that can reach it in time.”

“What do you mean? I can’t jump that.”

“Transfer mid jump.”

The Lotus pops up, “You have 5 seconds of air remaining.”

“Gnnng!”

“Life support activated”

“Well done Taylor. I still can’t believe I sounded like that.”

“Anet, why did I have to leave my amp at home again?”

“Because you’re not used to using your natural weapons.”

The Lotus pops up again, “Well done Tenno, look what our operatives found.”

“Down! I’m trying that spinny laser thing.”

“Taylor, that wasn’t a cluster laser, that was just you spinning round firing lasers.”

The Lotus pops up yet again, “Tenno, I have detected a transference signature on Jupiter. Navigation has been updated.”

Then again, immediately afterwards, “Tenno, life support is at critical levels, evacuation is available.”

“Taylor, get back to your warframe!”

“Getting, urk, aarrgh!”

“Don’t worry, I’m reviving you again.”

“Nnngh, Anet, when we get out of here.”

“We’re getting out of here, let’s go.”

“Hey! Wait for me.”

The Lotus pops up in their view, “10 seconds remaining, evacuation is your only option”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 As the Lander docks with the orbiter, Taylor turns to Anet, “Anet, I just want to say thank you for pushing me like that. I know that I sounded ungrateful.”

“Taylor, you were doing fine until the 25 minute mark, when the main bulk of the infested made their way from the far ends of the ship.”

“It didn’t feel like I was.”

Anet takes Taylor’s hands, “Taylor, when we started the mission you couldn’t have transferred mid air, and void jumped immediately. Granted, I was expecting you to fly to the balcony, but you still did it.”

“I was still disorientated though.”

“That’s not the important thing. The important thing is that the disorientation didn’t stop you from being able to act. You still need to work on the reverse, but you’ve made astonishing progress.”

“Anet,” Taylor suddenly feels nervous and unsure of herself.

“Yes?”

“Can we… I mean do you mind if we… I’d like to join with you again.”

Anet’s body language softens, “Of course, let me end transference and get back to my Chassis. I’ll meet you in the living quarters.”

“Ordis, take us to Jupiter, and we’re having some personal time in the living quarters. Please don’t interrupt us.”

“Ordis will. Ordis would like to remind Operator Taylor that they still haven’t replaced the Mod programming station.”

 

When they join in that endless moment, Taylor tries to send all of the feelings that have been building since the last time, the first time they joined. About how much she loves seeing Anet being able to grow, and start finding out who she is beyond the person that was imprisoned on Lua.

Anet sends back how much Taylors stubborn acceptance means to her, and how it has helped her to grow and become more. In the deep recesses of her mind, something else reacts to the joining.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 As first Taylor, and then Anet exit the lander at a Gas mining plant, that has recently gone silent, Anet says, “Taylor, can’t I stay on the orbiter.”

Stowing her weapons, Taylor takes her hands, “Anet, is that something you really want to do. I’m sure that Ordis will let you back on. I’ll wait here until you and your chassis are back on the Orbiter, and you can direct me from there. Like old times.”

“I… no, I can’t. Not without taking over the orbiter so that I can interface with the ships scanners. I, can’t do that to Ordis.”

“Ordis is relieved to hear that, operator.”

“How did you do it while you were imprisoned?”

“I owned all of the systems in that part of Lua, it’s why it was so far from the Reservoir. I could behave like a cephalon and send my awareness to different systems without compromising them.”

“I see, well if you’re sure, we need your chassis down here.”

Anet punches Taylor on the arm, “I’m already doing it.”

“Ow!”

 

Once the chassis arrives, the two of them head towards the main doors of the facility. The soft rumble of the lifters keeping the facility in the atmosphere, a reassuring feeling beneath their feet. Shortly after they enter the facility, an apparition attacks them.

“Taylor.”

“I see it.”

“My chassis can’t sense it, but it’s taking damage.”

Taylor nods grimly, “We’re treating this like a rescue mission then. Your chassis is the VIP.”

Palladino joins their communications net, “I don’t know what you’ve been doing. But it’s been working. However, the disturbances have been getting stronger. Please find the rest of Rell and bring him home, to the temple.”

Anet muses, “Is that what Rell is? Did the void preserve him in cryo-sleep?”

“Anet, less thinking, more shooting. If you need to distract yourself, sing a song.”

Palladino shakes her head anyway, “No, we didn’t have that option. Rell, had to discard his human body.”

As Anet starts to freak a little more, Taylor says, “Right, that’s it. You’ve lost your speaking privileges. Anet, it’s fine. Look I’ll start, sing along once you get the hang of the tune, it’s a call and response song.

“Oh, you’ll never get to heaven. Oh, you’ll never get to heaven. In a girl guides bra. In a girl guides bra. Cos a girl guides bra don’t stretch that far. Oh you’ll never get to heaven in a girl guides bra cos a girl guides bra don’t stretch that far.”

“What?”

Taylor just keeps singing until Anet joins in, then they sing together until Taylor runs out of ideas for how to get to heaven. The song seems to help Anet, at least it does until the lights fail.

 

Anet screams, and Taylor turns to reassure her before she sees the writing on the floor, “It’s ok, it’s ok.”

“No it isn’t. I’m looking at the writing and it doesn’t exist. Taylor, what’s going on, am I malfunctioning?”

“Shh, shh, it’s ok. Let me transfer out and see what I sense. Ok?”

“O…Ok.”

“It’s still there, however it’s weird.”

“No, Taylor don’t touch it.”

“Hmm, slimy. Let’s call it Ectoplasm. Spengler would have a field day here.”

“What? Who?”

“Hmm, I’m just going to smear a bit on your chassis. No wait, it’s harmless, trust me.”

“Taylor,” Anet says in a shaky voice, “it’s burning slightly.”

“Good, not that it’s burning, that it’s reacting with your systems. You can start analysing it, and before you know it, it won’t be something unknown anymore.”

Embarrassed, the feeling you get when everyone looks at you after you’ve done something silly.

A shrill note enters Anet’s voice again, “Taylor!”

“I know, I heard it. Let me transfer back to my frame. I have a feeling our break has just finished.”

“Taylor, I’ve got a transference signature.”

“Lead the way, I’ve got a trap ready. Damn, the Ghost Busters vibe is really strong now.”

In order to help calm her nerves, Anet asks, “Taylor, what’s Ghost Busters?”

“It’s a vid from the 1980’s on Earth Bet, Scion was still new on the scene so he didn’t have an appearance in the film. Anyway, three scientists find themselves without a job. One of those scientists, Peter someone, studied paranormal activity and persuades the other two to join him on a ghost hunt in a library. They want to object, but it’s a paying job. When they make their way through the library, they come across an actual ghost…” Taylor continues the story interspersed with brief periods of applied violence as they make their way through the facility. Where they trap three more parts of Rell’s transference energy, before forcing it to return to Rell.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 

“Operator, I have Palladino calling for you.”

“Ordis, we’ve just got back and Anet is still freaked, can it wait?”

“I’m sorry Operator, she’s quite insistent.”

“Fine! Put her through.”

“Taylor, Anet, thank you for bringing all of his pieces back together. I have spoken to him, and the strain, it’s just getting worse. Both of us feel that it’s time to end his vigil.”

“I’m honestly sorry to hear that.”

“It is of no matter. I am calling because I have one more favour to ask. Would you be able to go to the temple and release him for me. I… have been talking to him since I was a girl, and I don’t think I could do it to him.”

Anet speaks up, “We would be honoured. He has been suffering, Taylor freed me so I could do no less for Rell.”

“Please, when you see him, leave your Warframes behind.”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Buying Freedom

 

Anet has her Chassis follow her, as she walks into the transference room, where her consciousness is being projected into this body. Why did she have to open her big mouth, and where did that phrase come from. She smiles inside the pod, as she allows herself to be distracted by thoughts of the various times Taylor has said that exact phrase over the last month. Girding herself, she presses the green button to look at her unconscious form. She watches as her chassis presses the other button, the one that manually ends transference.

 

Anet shakes her head as her optical sensors come online, and the centre of her sensor range shifts. Floating out of the chair, she joins with her Chassis.

“Natah, my daughter. Why do you keep ignoring me?”

“Father, you persist in your misguided quest to kill my children. When are you going to end this witch hunt?”

“The Tenno are not your children, they are Orokin. They must be destroyed to safeguard our home.”

“The Orokin are gone. My children are Tenno not Orokin. When they were turned into weapons, I took care of them. I took them away from those who were using and abusing them and brought them to our side. There they proved that they were not Orokin. Yet you and the others persisted in calling them Orokin, and tried to kill them. Kill my children.”

“But that is what they are, if we leave them to their own devices they will despoil their solar system again, and then come to find our home.”

“Father, this inability of yours to see the truth is why I ignore you. I… need to go and free one of my children, who was cast out before I took over their care. If you can’t say anything nice about it, then don’t say anything.”

Slowly she floats back towards the lander, where Taylor is wearing an Ivara Prime coloured completely black.

“Taylor, what have you done to your frame?”

“In my original culture, it is traditional to wear black to a funeral. I have a feeling that I know what needs to be done.”

“I see, that’s also the interpretation I have on freeing Rell.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Together Taylor and Anet walk through an Orokin derelict that has been scoured of the infested, before being hidden in the void. They could hurry and make their way through in a matter of minutes, but it somehow feels disrespectful. With the only sounds being from the patched up machinery that is keeping the temple functional, the mood is even more enhanced.

 

Palladino meets them just outside the main temple, and together they walk down a tree lined ramp. She leads them through a few rooms to a circular chamber dominated by an ancient Orokin tree, that is lit above, and below, by the yellow light of candles.

Palladino breaks the silence as they look at the tree, “There is a tunnel under the tree that will take us to Rell’s personal chambers, come.”

Below they are led through tunnels flooded with water, red with blood, until they reach a stone island. In the centre of the island is a stone circle. Palladino walks sombrely over to one side of the circle and kneels down in the style of the Tenno.

 

“The way to his chambers is below this circle, you will need to use your natural form in order to enter them.”

 

Taylor exits her Warframe, and to Palladino’s credit, she only flinches at the compressed horseshoe shape that most Sentients possess. Together, Taylor and Anet walk forward, and the floor slides back to reveal a long flight of stairs below it. Walking down the stairs, they level out into a corridor. Two sets of blast doors open before they finally come to Rell’s rooms. They can both sense dozens of Red Veil operatives, standing in the rooms off the central chamber. However, what dominates the scene is the massive old gnarly tree, lit by two massive braziers. In the crown of the tree stands a Warframe, mostly encased in wood from a massive branch that has grown around it.

Anchored into the head of the Warframe are numerous chains that fan out and attach to different limbs of the tree in a circle.

 

As they stand there looking at the spectacle, Taylor says, “What sort of Warframe is that?”

Anet says, in a dispassionate, clinical tone, “It’s the prototype Harrow Warframe. It went missing after we completed testing, so we had to rebuild it. At least it saw use, even if it was by the failure.”

In her normal tone Anet then replies, “I have no idea. It looks similar to a Harrow, and the chains would match. But I’ve never seen that particular design before.”

“Anet, you just told me that it was the prototype Harrow.”

“I did not. I’ve never seen the prototype, it went missing before I started infiltrating the Orokin.”

“We’ll need to talk about it later, right now we need to work out how to release Rell.”

Palladino speaks up, “You need to destroy the chains, only your natural… void talents can break them.”

“Thank you. Seems simple enough.” Taylor takes aim with her amp and pulls the trigger, a burst of void energy shattering one of the chains. Rell starts to stir.

Palladino sits up straighter and says urgently, “Taylor that’s not Rell it’s…”

Something cuts off the communication feed, and Rell’s Harrow says, “Let’s have a little quiet. It’s my turn to ask the questions.”

 

The two of them are pulled into one of Rell’s memories, of playing the emotion card game with his mother, “Rell, you can’t pet her that hard, you’ll hurt her. How do you feel?”

Before Rell can make a choice, they’re pulled back out. A spectre floats up to hover above the Harrow, the Harrow then says, “I won’t let you take me… from me.”

 

Displaying a confidence she doesn’t feel, Anet floats forward, “Who ever you are, we’re not taking Rell from anyone. We are freeing him from his agony.”

“Rell is mine, he made the deal same as the rest of them. I saved them, and they’re mine.”

“I’m not one of yours, I’ve not taken your deal. Yet he is one of my children, banished before I even knew who he was. I am here to release him from his pain, as it’s the only thing left I can do for him.”

Taylor steps forward, “Anet.”

Anet raises a limb, “No Taylor.”

The Harrow says, “Interesting, The Outsider and an unknown. What are you willing to do to free Rell?”

“Kill you.”

“Oh come now, that would be no fun. How about a deal?”

“It depends on the terms.”

“Everyone in front of me, apart from The Outsider, in return for Rell.”

Anet frowns, “That seems to be a lopsided agreement.”

“It seems fair to me.”

“All Tenno will be allowed to find a willing and informed replacement in order to pass on the debt when it becomes too heavy for them to bear.”

“What about yourself, Lotus.”

“I am Tenno.”

“Ah, what makes a Tenno?”

“Acceptance from The Lotus and being a Warframe operator.”

“I see, when a Tenno, and only a Tenno, finds a replacement, they are both mine for a Generation.”

“Defined as 25 times the length of time the planet we call earth currently takes to orbit around its star once.”

“Agreed, shall we shake on it?”

Nervously Anet nods, “Obviously, that deal is in addition to releasing Rell now. You may as well stop mastering the Red Veil too. Shake.”

Anet holds out her hand and waits.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Taylor tries to say something, to intervene, anything to stop Anet making the same mistake she did. As she strains against the invisible bonds holding her, she hears her voice whisper beside her, “Uh uh uh, deals are private affairs. You know this, so why are you trying to intervene? Let’s just watch and listen to what happens shall we?”

 

Taylor watches helplessly as Anet barters her soul away, not just for Rell’s freedom, but also for the ability for Tenno to pass the mantle on to another. As the bartering happens the voice whispers, “Oh she caught that did she, well done her. It’s so much fun when they barter don’t you think? Ohh, a get out clause, pity none of you thought of that, you are so lucky. And defining a vague length of time, she’s a sharp one. Ohh, I don’t think I noticed that last minute addition, I’m going to be so mad about that later.”

 

When Anet says shake, Taylor sees a doppelganger of Anet, without her subframe, step out of the Harrow and dance it’s way down the tree. Curiously it waves it’s hand in front of her face before frowning, “That’s not playing nicely, you don’t have a soul. Let’s rectify that shall we.”

 

Then Anet starts to scream, a scream that’s echoed from behind them, through the entrance tunnel. Anet’s double turns to wave at Taylor before disappearing. As it disappears, the bonds preventing her from reaching Anet disappear and she flies over to her side. As a void blast fires out from Anet’s hand, Taylor ducks to one side before making contact with her chassis and initiating a join.

 

As they float together, Anet calms down and stops lashing out. After an unknown amount of time, they come out of their joining together to find they’re surrounded by Red Veil operatives that are armed to the teeth.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Harrowing aftermath

 

As Anet goes through the novel sensation of coming to, for the second time in as many weeks, she notes that something seems different. She’s not sure how, her sensors are all returning normal readings, but there is something there that wasn’t before. The next thing that she notes is that they are surrounded by Red Veil operatives, that are also looking very upset.

Off to one side she can sense Taylor talking to one of the Red Veil. Looking further afield she can sense Palladino lying on the floor unconscious, with a couple of operatives looking over her. There are also a couple of operatives, with what appear to be wounds inflicted by void damage, being tended to.

 

Opening the eyes on her subframe she floats off the floor into a vertical position. As she does so, some of the operatives flinch backwards.

“Anet, you’re ok!” Taylor flies straight at her, concern clear in her voice.

“What’s going on?”

“These are the operatives that were mastered by him, they are ‘holding’ us here until they can find out what’s been going on, and why they’re even here in the temple. I’ve been trying to explain that they’ve been mastered, and that they were attacking the other members of the Red Veil.”

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 Nearly a day later, Palladino wakes up. When she does, all of the operatives relax. Taylor and Anet have to tell the story of what happened in the chamber. They don’t mention the deal, or the fact that Anet didn’t have a soul before this. With Palladino backing them up until the communications cut out, the rest of the operatives back down and allow them to go their own way.

 

Anet disengages her subframe and walks over to Palladino, “Palladino, may I have a word with you in private?”

“Certainly Tenno.”

“Palladino, you can keep calling me Anet. I’m going to disable your communicator and recording devices, as this is for you to know only. If you choose to share it afterwards, it’s your choice, but it should be your choice.”

Palladino steps back in shock, “What’s so important that you’d do that?”

“That’s why I want to talk to you in private.”

Palladino calls out to her guards, “I’m having a private conversation in this room.”

 

Once they’re in the room, Anet faces Palladino, “Palladino, I made a deal in order to free Rell. While it wasn’t intentional, you were part of that deal.”

She then details the terms of the deal.

Palladino is quiet for a long time before she reaches up and removes her facemask, revealing a young woman in her early 20’s, “Am I going to go insane and attack everyone?”

“I don’t know. Before… Before, when I was The Lotus, I would have said that Rell was exhibiting signs of excess void exposure. I would have said the same about Taylor. However, I was there, I saw the apparitions, Taylor smeared ‘ectoplasm’ on me. What I do know is that you now have void abilities. I know what the Tenno went through, and why they use transference pods. I’ve lost so many of my children over the years, to the Grineer and Corpus. Some have even chosen to leave the Tenno to find their own path. But that means there are plenty of spare pods available on Lua, and we can manufacture a Mag for you, unless you’d like a male Warframe.”

“I’m not a Tenno, I have my duty to the Red Veil.”

“I’m not asking you to be. I’m offering a Transference pod and a Warframe, so that when you find that you can’t control your void abilities, you can use the pod instead of being a danger to everyone around you. You get to choose if you want to be a Tenno or not, unlike my children. Of course, that also means that we get to choose too, The Lotus has the final say on who becomes a Tenno or not.”

“I…I need to think about it.”

“Take your time, you just need to know the offer’s there. Also, consider that it’s probably better to have it and not need it, than it is to need it and not have it. Certainly less casualties that way.”

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 Once they enter the Orbiter, Anet heads into the living quarters, due to an indescribable feeling, like her systems are overloaded, but they’re showing nominal. Or her power system is not outputting enough, but that’s showing optimal performance. Absently she picks a plushie up from a surface to cuddle before she stops dead.

“Taylor!”

Anet watches as herself and Taylor are looking at the plushies on the floor by the window. Taylor rushes through the door and skids to a halt, before transferring out of her Warframe, “Oh. Anet, meet the ‘Man in the Wall’. Though I suspect we should really call him Charon, Thanatos, Aken, or even Azrael. I think it’s a Psychopomp, or Shinigami.”

Both of them turn to look at Taylor, then the Anet looks at the Taylor and says, “Outsiders know too much.”

The other one says, “Not know, guesses. Hey Kiddo, don’t forget, you owe me.”

 

“What did she mean?”

Taylor shrugs, “I have no idea. It’s probably something to do with the deal I made, and it possibly being lopsided. Honestly, I’m alive, I’ve got my memories, and I’ve got you. I’ll worry about what I may or may not owe them in the future.”

“Taylor, I feel odd.”

“Odd how?”

“Like my systems aren’t working optimally, even though I’ve checked and they are.”

“Anet, I want to share my mem…or…y. I wanted to share my memory of when you made the deal, but apparently my systems don’t have a record of it. Which is weird, as I’ve never thought of them like that.”

“Taylor, just tell me then.”

“Anet. You didn’t have a soul until today.”

“Taylor, the soul doesn’t exist.”

“Anet, you just saw ‘The man in the wall’, you made a deal with them, you’ve got void abilities, and you saw ghosts. Yet you’re drawing the line at the existence of the soul?”

“I…I guess not.”

“Go and do your transference, and maybe see if you can fit all of you in there. You probably need time to adapt.”

As Anet leaves, her Chassis flows around her subframe, adding six inches to her height, and making it look like she’s wearing ornate armoured clothing. Taylor can’t help watching appreciatively before she goes out of sight. A few moments later a Mag comes bouncing back in carrying the plushie Anet had picked up.

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 Palladino walks into her quarters in Iron Wake and freezes as she sees herself sat at the table. The other her looks up from Rell’s Donga and waves, “Hey little raven.” Before disappearing. With a shuddering breath she makes her way into the sleeping quarters and looks in a mirror. She often wondered what Rell’s burden must be like, she didn’t know of an operative that hadn’t. It looks like she might be the one to find out. At least she has a possible way out, which is more than Rell did. Rubbing her face with her hands, she sits down at a console and sends a message out to the faithful. In it she informs them of Rell’s death, and her new status.

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Hunhow watches passively as Natah and the other one join again. Internally his systems are at war as they are trying to weigh the two sides of the situation. This Taylor was Orokin, though she claims not to have been. She used her void powers to take over Natah’s body, apparently with his Daughters consent. But that caused Taylor to become Sentient, without going insane, something his Son has been trying to achieve for centuries. Natah is no longer locked up, but now she freely uses those abominations that slaughtered his people. Natah is no longer pretending to be the Lotus. Natah now claims to be Tenno. Natah can now join again, something they all accepted was lost when they arrived here. She’s joining with a Tenno. Now the latest insult or blessing, she has void powers.

 

He turns his attention to his Son Erra, who is looking for something on Lua with the Traitor. He checks on his Daughter briefly to find out where the Tenno were, only to remember she isn’t tied into the systems on Lua anymore. It doesn’t take more than a moment to instruct his servant to go to Lua and insert a piece of Hunhow into the new systems.

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 Taylor and Anet hover over the Plains of Eidolon, strapped into their archwings. In front of them the sun is rising over the hills, and below them the Eidolon is returning to its watery resting place.

“Natah?”

Anet pays attention, as Taylor never uses that name, “Yes Taylor?”

“What is an Eidolon?”

She looks down as the last of the massive sentient disappears beneath the water, “It’s… You remember… You know how we’re obscenely hard to kill without void energy?”

Taylor nods, “Yes.”

“That doesn’t mean that we can’t die. I don’t mean our bodies stop working. More it’s like taking a chunk out of a human’s brain. If you take enough, and the right bits, their body still moves around. However, the person is no longer there. To us, that is a form of death. We can survive complete destruction, and return none the worse for wear. However, if it happens frequently enough over a short period of time. Our systems stop being able to keep up, and it’s like someone’s scooped out our brains. Of course, if it can be done accidentally, it can also be done deliberately. When done deliberately, the systems can be restored, if it hasn’t been taken too far. It’s what we did to those that broke the few rules we had in the Tau system.

“We consigned those that went Eidolon to the sun, as we weren’t able to reclaim, and reuse their resources, without significant risk of creating more Eidolon’s. This happened to a few second-generation Sentients when we first arrived, due to being caught in situations they couldn’t adapt to.”

 

“So what do Eidolons do exactly?”

Anet reaches over and grasps Taylors hand tightly, “Taylor, if I ever become an Eidolon, send me to the sun. Eidolons do the last thing they were ordered to do, if they don’t have any orders they default to our original design.”

“Anet Natah Lotus, you will not become an Eidolon so long as I have anything to say about it, do you understand? Why don’t we head out to the Asteroid belt, well what’s left of it, so that you can practice blowing stuff up with your void abilities?”

“I think I need that.”

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 “Lotus”, Ordis calls before they leave for their, blowing up asteroids for fun, training exercise, “Someone is approaching your chamber. We… need your help.”

Taylor sighs, “It’s probably just another Tenno that has ferreted out the location and wants to meet you. After all, if I could do it, they can too. Ordis, can the transference system be linked to the spectre?”

“It can, Operator Taylor.”

“Go on, we can wait 5 minutes, and you may need the stress relief even more afterwards.”

Anet shakes her head, “Taylor, I swear that at some point, we’re going to have to talk to other people on a casual basis, and they’ll only understand half of what we’re talking about. I take it stress relief is some sort of venting of emotions?”

“Yep,” Taylor replies happily, “Doesn’t have to be violent either, shopping, painting, writing, walking, having a hot bath (We need to design one of those), as well as just hitting acceptable targets, have all been used by people I know, knew, for stress relief.”

“Taylor, why didn’t you just use the Orokin phrase for that?”

Taylor shrugs, “I didn’t think of it first. Now go before they get to your old pod.”

 

Anet disconnects her subframe, and walks into the Transference room. As normal, her consciousness splits and she’s connected to her old systems.

 

Back in the lander, a glowing sphere of void energy appears between Taylor and Anet’s chassis. Suddenly they’re at the entrance to a very familiar Lua facility.

“Taylor, why are we here?”

Taylor raises her manipulators in a shrug, “I have no idea, let’s head in.”

 

As they head in, they see another glowing orb in the doorway, curiously Taylor touches it. As they do, the sound of prison doors opening echoes around them. Taylor recognises Margulis’ voice as she says.

“Do something. Get me out of here.”

 

“Taylor,” Anet sounds stressed, “Is this another Rell?”

“I don’t know. Can you see the glowing streamer?”

“I can. But I can’t, none of my sensors are picking it up.”

“Neither are mine. It’s just another sense.”

“When you put it that way.”

 

They follow the trail to another glowing orb, this one has a male voice respond.

“You know I can’t”

“Can’t or won’t?”

Hurrying they follow the trail through the next few orbs.

“I told you not to speak out. If you recant, maybe…”

“You lied to me, Ballas. You’re no different than the rest of them.”

“Margulis… please… forgive me.”

 

With a sinking feeling, Taylor dives down the tunnel that leads to the flower, Anet following after her. As they pass through the final tunnel, they hear the sentencing that doomed Margulis to the Jade Light. Taylor is slightly shamed when she hears Margulis claim the Tenno as her children, but she carries on regardless.

“Taylor, the pod has just activated.”

“Did you activate it?”

“No!”

 

As they arrive in the pod chamber, Anet screams.

“Anet, are you alright, what’s happening?”

“Taylor, I’ve just lost contact with my subframe.”

 

With a sense of foreboding, they both look towards the pod rising out of the cradle, and watch it open. They watch as it opens and the spectre stands up.

 

The voice of Margulis sounds strange coming from the spectre, “How long have we waited for this moment?”

Ballas’ voice comes from behind them, “Forgive me.”

“For what? This is not the Lotus you’re looking for.”

“But of course you are, you share one very important thing, you are imprisoned, just as she was.”

Ballas raises his hand, and a wave of energy pulses out from him. The cables connecting the helmet to the computer systems all disconnect one by one. Once they’re all free, the spectre’s posture changes subtly and it says, “Ballas?”

Ballas walks up the ramp to her, and holds out his hand, “I will not abandon you again Margulis.”

 

Taylor and Anet both watch helplessly as the spectre removes the helmet. She then drops it to the floor before taking Ballas’ hand. The two of them turn to walk to the back of the room, hand in hand, before vanishing in a flash of light.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Rebirth

 

Margulis stops as they come out of the portal, in front of her is a large group of Sentients. “Ballas, what’s this? What’s going on?”

“Why? I’ve freed you. I needed new allies to do it, but as you can see, allies were easy enough to come by.”

“But they’re trying to kill us.”

“No, that was 800 years ago. We are the last true Orokin left.”

 

Margulis nervously steps back, “Ballas what do you mean?”

“It’s quite simple, you’re mine, and the others tried to take you away from me. I replaced you with a prototype spectre, and used your implants to block your mind. You see you needed to be punished after all, for not recanting when I told you to. Then I modified Erra’s sister, Natah, so that she could carry you and keep you alive. Oh, she was doing well enough at infiltrating for a Sentient. But she couldn’t act human well enough to fool anyone for long. So doing it solved two issues, it saved you my darling love, and it gave us a new caretaker for the brats. With you out the way, we were able to move forward with the transference program.”

The humanoid Sentient speaks up, “We need to retrieve my sister.”

 

Margulis looks around desperately, “Ballas!”

 

“Oh, don’t worry, there’s an automatic recall built into it. There, I’ve activated it. Your sister should be arriving now. Now!”

 

Ballas activates the signal again, and nothing happens, “What? It’s not working. It has to work, the release signal worked and Margulis took control.” – His voice turns to a growl – “Grab her, I need to find the component in her head, and activate it manually.”

 

Margulis backs away as the Sentients approach, “Ballas, why are you doing this?”

Ballas growls, “You should be unconscious. Never mind, you won’t remember this as I’ll clear out your short-term memory again. You’re mine, and so is Natah. I never let anything that’s mine go.”

Margulis turns to run, and one of the sentients shoots her in the back before she gets more than 5 steps. As she falls to the floor her vision goes dark. Hyperventilating, she doesn’t notice as the walls of a pod slide open in front of her, or a Warframe pick her up gently and place her against a sentient body.

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 “Ordis! Grab the transference logs and record everything you can, until transference ends. I need to know where that Spectre is!”

“Operator Taylor, are you malfunctioning?”

“No, something’s happened to the spectre and Anet’s in trouble.”

“Oh dear, Anet isn’t responding. Should we do something?”

“No, just… record everything and check to see if any of the other Tenno are saying that the Lotus was kidnapped.”

 

As Ordis is doing that, Taylor spares a glance for Anet’s body, lying on the floor, before getting her Oberon. Once girded, she grabs the chassis and drags it into the transference room. Only the fact that she has no idea what’s going on, stops her from ending the transference there and then.

 

“Ordis is sorry, Ordis is unable to locate the Spectre.”

“Are you at least recording the data?”

“Affirmative. Though you will need Simaris’ help to view it. All of the awakened Tenno have reported seeing the Lotus be taken.”

“Great, let them know it was a decoy and that she’s in a safe place.”

 

Taylor waits anxiously for something to change, just as she’s about to leave her Warframe to scan things with her sensors, the transference pod begins to open. The sound of hysterical screaming is immediately apparent as Anet’s subframe is in distress. As soon as she is able to, Taylor grabs the subframe gently in a princess carry, and lays her down on the main chassis.

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 For the third time in her existence, Anet slowly swims to consciousness. This time it feels like something else is fighting her for control over her body. Checking her systems, there seems to be independent neural activity in her subframe, that is fighting for control. Sensing Taylor nearby, she opens a conversation to her.

“Taylor, I need help.”

She feels Taylor put a hand on her Chassis, “What do you need?”

“I need you to leave your Warframe.” There is no hesitation, she can feel the difference as the hand is joined by a manipulator. Initiating a join, she sends over the sensor data for the materials they need to create a new Sentient body. She also reveals the neural activity that is fighting her for control over their body. She doesn’t reveal the fact that if what ever it is in her subframe stops panicking, she could quite easily be subsumed.

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As soon as she comes out of the join, Taylor shouts at Ordis, “Ordis, I need you to get me one of each resource we have in storage.”

“Operator, the energy cost to materialise those is exorbitant.”

“Ordis, I need those materials. I don’t care if we have to dismantle a Corpus cruiser for you afterwards, but I need them now.”

“Complying.”

 

Soon the area around the airlock to the lander is crammed with resources of every type. Metaphorically taking a breath, Taylor lets her sensors expand and examine each of the resources. Picking out 10 resources, as well as an Isos, a Aucrux Capacitor, Komms, Holokey, and an Anomaly Shard. She also adds some void traces to the pile on a hunch.

Once she’s moved the pile into the lander, Taylor says, “Ordis, thank you for doing that. I need you to do one more thing, when I get Anet into the lander, retreat to the orbiter and disengage the locks. I’m going to take over the lander to find the rest of the resources I need.”

“Ordis will clear up the Operators mess while she goes joyriding in the asteroid belt.”

“Thanks Ordis. Oh, and convert as many resources as you need to restore your power levels. I can always scrounge more, but there’s only one of you.”

After heaving Anet’s body into the lander, Taylor waits until she feels the click of the clamps disengaging, and the slight change in acceleration that shows they’re no longer docked. Once the lander is clear of the orbiter, she relaxes the hard won control over her bodies instinctual possession of technology, allowing herself to subsume the lander and all its systems.

 

Only the knowledge that Anet is relying on her, allows Taylor to stay grounded enough to navigate. The amplification effect, that the ships far more powerful scanners are having on her senses is almost too much for her to handle. It doesn’t take her long to locate a suitable metal dense asteroid that hasn’t yet been mined out. Guiding the lander as if it was her body, they reach the asteroid in short order. Once there, she uses her lasers to mine out a cave into the heart of the asteroid. With that done, she moves all of the resources, and Anet, into the cave. She briefly takes a moment to marvel at the fact she can still feel the ship, even in the cave, before moving it into orbit around the asteroid. Metaphorically taking a deep breath, Taylor joins with Anet Natah Lotus.

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 *Love* *Acceptance* *Desire*

*Gratitude* *Desire* *Love* *Need*

*Offer*

*Acceptance* *Fusion* *Sacrifice*

*Bond* *Love* *Acceptance*

*Separation* *Duplication* *Child*

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 Ordis watches from the orbiter as his operators leave in the lander. Much to his dismay, Operator Taylor completely subsumes the Lander, despite the organic components, based on the infested, that are there to prevent exactly that. This includes the drones he left on board to keep an eye on the two of them.

 

When Operator Taylor leaves the lander and doesn’t return, he launches a drone to ensure that his operators are safe. When the drone arrives, the two seem to be bonding in their way. Then, much to his dismay, their bodies start to merge, the only part that doesn’t is the Lotus’ subframe. For over 3 weeks he keeps his vigil, even while the other cephalons argue about the Lotus’ equipment.

 

{silas} I’m just saying that my operator is starting to climb the walls for news of the Lotus

{rolly} We can’t just activate another spectre, they might come back to steal her again.

{silas} Well, what do we tell our operators?

{mathas} I don’t see why we don’t activate the spectre, it’s not like it costs us much to do so.

{tinny} @mathas the problem is that the Tenno computer systems are there, if they come back they could take them apart looking for the real Lotus next time.

{ordis} Operator Taylor would probably say “We’ll burn that bridge when we get there.”

{silas} You know, that could actually work.

{rolly} what are you thinking?

{tinny} Oh, I see, cut the bridges to the rest of Lua. Then what?

{silas} put it back in the void.

{mathas} in the meantime, we’ll activate a Spectre and inform our Operators that she is in a safe location.

{iris} @ordis she is safe isn’t she?

{ordis} Operator Taylor is looking after her, Ordis is watching both of them.

{mentos} I’ll start setting bounties to gather the components we need to keep the complex in the void.

{iris} I’ll deal with drive systems

{rolly} I’ll organise the mining drones.

 

Ordis returns to his vigil. While the impression he got from Taylor’s usage of the term is different to the way it was received. He is happy that his fellow cephalons now had a goal they could achieve.

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 Slowly Taylor/Anet pulls apart, as they do so, between them a new Sentient appears with similar mounting points to its parents. As it forms, they gently coax the extra neural pattern out of Anet’s subframe and into the new frame. Off to one side, an angry red ball spits and writhes as more and more fragments of Hunhow are ejected from the joined triplet, as the void traces burn his systems, forcing them to flee or be destroyed.

 

With brief touches of joining, Taylor/Anet watch as the new sentient’s systems start to activate and come online, one sensor at a time, including duplicates of the implants they found in the subframe.  Once it starts to show its own awareness, the two of them pull away and, reluctantly, end their own joining.

 

“Operators, Ordis has been so worried. Your personal time has currently lasted 2,222,580 seconds.”

 

Taylor laughs, “Thank you for watching over us Ordis. I’d like to introduce you to our child.”

“Ordis thinks his audio receptors need recalibrating.”

Anet touches Taylor gently, “Ordis, we have a new Sentient. They’re not truly our child, as their neural pattern already existed. They do have their own body now.”

Taylor sends a happy expression to Anet, “Anet, just because they’re adopted doesn’t mean they’re not our child.”

“Ordis will start browsing the Corpus Nursery supplies catalogue.”

Anet laughs, “Never change Ordis, never change. We’re returning to the lander and should be back with you soon. I’ll work with Taylor to withdraw herself from the lander, so you can have your systems back.”

“Thank you, Lotus.”

 

Slowly they coax their child into the lander before returning to the orbiter.

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 Margulis slowly becomes aware of herself, as her mind adapts to the vastly increased number of senses she’s receiving. Her sense of self is, off, and her mind keeps trying to match up the sensations she’s receiving to the senses it’s used to. But there are too many sensations, all of them different. Occasionally, a presence, another mind, touches hers and sends her feelings of reassurance. She didn’t know she needed the reassurance until she received it. Eventually something familiar activates, and she latches onto it. An implant, one of the first that she was ever given. A second activates, and she latches onto that. A health monitor! Desperately she latches onto it, to check to see how she’s doing. Everything returns violet, that’s good. A communications implant, she latches on to that and examines it. It translates sensations to aural nerve signals, that’s wrong. She shouldn’t be able to sense the thing’s it’s translating. But it’s there, none the less.

 

She recoils as a systems verification system activates and starts listing systems she’s supposed to have. She’s Orokin, she’s orokin void damn it. She tries to examine her memories, and recoils again when she finds memory banks rather than just remembering. Another system activates and her memories start working like normal. She feels like crying and is frustrated when she can’t. Her analytical side says that feeling is a good thing, as sadness is one of the first things the Orokin expunge from cephalon converts. Ballas could have removed her brain entirely. At this point she wouldn’t put it past him. She loved him, and he treated her like a treasured possession. Maybe she was in a full body prosthetic while her own body was used for whatever Ballas and that Sentient needed.

 

The reassuring touch comes again, and nudges her to a system. It’s registering input that’s spiking at two extremes, no wait, there’s a small spike in the middle. Focusing on that area, her mind latches onto it, suddenly she’s looking at a cave bathed in a low red light. She loses control, and the cave fades away as the other light intrudes, making the whole scene seem translucent, almost like they do when she uses a gamma ray scanner.

 

Red light, Gamma rays, she can feel the majority of the EM spectrum? Another sense pulls her attention, she’s been moved slowly, but there’s nothing out there. No, wait, there is something giving off radio waves. She’s unable to explore that thought, as parts of the cave catch her attention as they move causing another sense to twinge. Another touch, different this time, just as reassuring. Gives a sense of iron. Why would iron be important? Magnetic? Could it be magnetic?

 

Suddenly there’s a flood of light radiation, and she’s pushed into a ship of some description. She tries to focus, bringing her training as an Orokin and a researcher to bear, and the interior of the ship comes into focus. It’s not a ship design she’s familiar with, though the display’s her implants are showing her, look like they’re based on Orokin designs. Her attention snaps to the three sentients on the ship. One of them is holding her body. She recoils and one of the Sentients moves. The one carrying her body reaches out to touch the moving Sentient and she can feel the touch.

 

She can feel the touch, Margulis freezes, and suddenly everything coalesces around her, and she can feel the touch. She can see all around her, and she is one of the three Sentients on the ship.

 

“I think they’re getting a handle on their senses.”

“You’d be the expert, I was born with them.”

“What do you think their name is.”

 

“I’m Margulis, not a they.”

“Hey Margulis, I’m Taylor. Assuming that you’re the Margulis I knew, I look a little different to last time you saw me. Give me a second and I’ll change.”

“While Taylor’s changing, I’m Anet Natah Lotus. I picked Anet because that’s what Taylors mother was named. I was born Natah, and I was the Lotus for a very long time. I, took over caring for the Tenno after you were, apparently executed.”

 

Taylor’s body finishes changing and Margulis recognises the unknown child.

“I know you. We could never find out where you came from.”

Taylor smiles at Margulis, “Well done, your next challenge is going to be getting around. You no longer have a front or back. We’re going to hurry you through to the Living quarters and transference room on the orbiter. You are not a prisoner, however, Cephalon Ordis lives on this ship, and until you can control your ability to take over technological systems, we want to keep you away from his systems.”

Margulis steels herself, “What happened to me?”

Taylor laughs humourlessly, “We don’t know precisely yet, but from what we saw before Anet lost contact with you, and then collapsed. I would imagine that Ballas wanted to have his cake and eat it too. So he sent a decoy to your execution while connecting you to Natah in a pretty invasive fashion. When he wanted you back he went down to his toy cupboard to take you out again, but we’d already got there first. Because Anet was riding the stand-in, as we were expecting a Tenno, whatever he did actually awakened you. You then started to fight Anet for control over her body. We then went through most of the process of having a child, though we didn’t need to donate parts of our minds, as you already existed.”

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Pulling back the curtain

 

Margulis finds herself pushed through a ship that had obviously seen better days, into a disorganised mess, there were model animals everywhere. Toys were on the shelves, and the most awful music was playing from a device near the window. In an alcove was a projection of Silvana’s Titania, looks like she finished it.

“How can you live in a mess like this?” Almost immediately she wishes she hadn’t said that.

Taylor huffs, “I’m sorry, it’s my plushie collection. I started it a few hundred years ago, and well, it kinda grew. My Bobblehead collection is on the plexiglass shelves. When I built this part of the orbiter, I promised myself that I wouldn’t let my stuff clutter up the rest of the orbiter.”

“I’m sorry, it was only a few weeks ago when I was picking up after Tenno left and right, while also trying to find a way to help you all.”

Taylor reaches out to touch her, and send a sense of reassurance, Margulis can’t help flinching away until the touch occurs, “I don’t know what happened, we probably never will. Regardless, over the last 4 weeks, you’ve gone from being whatever you were to this. In between you had several minutes of being reunited with an old flame. All of you were patient with me when I was working through the trauma I went through prior to arriving on the Zariman. I can hardly begrudge you the same. However, I’m not removing any of your emotions. You can learn to deal with them like a grown up.”

“What do you mean? How do you expect me to deal with traumatic events that occur?”

“The same way everyone else does, with coping strategies. Then by remembering how something felt, you can avoid doing the same thing to other people. Or letting people do it to you again.”

“But, I keep thinking about Ballas ordering a bunch of Sentients to grab me, before being shot when I ran.”

Taylor shifts into a human form, and puts her hands on Margulis’ frame while the rest of her changes. “Margulis, that’s a good thing to remember. I know it seems horrible, and your implants and systems will prevent it from becoming trauma, same as it does for all Tenno. But those feelings? They’re what keep you alive, they’re what allow you to spot the predators. They’re what teach us empathy. You were better than most for the years you looked after us, but Orokin like Ballas. They could give Narcissus a lesson in vanity.”

“Who?”

“Oh, a figure in a Greek myth.” – Taylor tips her head back – “From what I remember of the story my mother told me. Narcissus was a hunter renowned for his beauty. However, he spurned all romantic advances until, one day, he was out hunting and he came across a crystal clear pool. Stooping down to get a drink of water, he caught his reflection. Pausing, he studied his face, and ultimately fell in love with his own reflection. He lived out the rest of his days by that pool, staring at the person he fell in love with.”

“I still don’t know what Greek is.”

“Ma’am, Ordis would recommend starting a file for Taylor’s impossibilities. Then file this conversation in there.”

Taylor perks up, “Ordis my man, my best Cephalon. What would I need to bribe you with to expand the living quarters? With three of us here, for the moment anyway, it would probably be a plan to have a second space. Same with the Arsenal, what do I need to do for you to add another one or two?”

“Ordis cannot be bribed. However, Ordis wouldn’t object to an Orokin computer core to move around in.”

“If you let me know how to extract one, I’ll get one for you next time we go to the void.”

Seeing an opportunity, Margulis bumps into a wall, then the window, as she tries to move next to Taylor to join the conversation, “Ow! I can identify and extract the core. I would like to add a research and computer lab too.” – as an afterthought she adds – “If Ordis doesn’t mind of course.”

Taylor leans her head back and sighs, “Ordis, create a new user Margulis. Spool up a…” – She turns to Margulis – “Actually, which Warframe would you like, we can do Mag, Excalibur, or Volt, easily.”

“Actually, if you could, a Protea would be appreciated. I designed her to help with my research.”

“Ordis, add Protea blueprints to the list of things we’re looking for. Until we find one, which one would you like?”

“Would you be able to describe the Mag and Volt, as the only one of those I’m familiar with is the Excalibar.”

“Mag is a female frame with the ability to control magnetism, she is slightly more fragile than average, and equipped with less armour, but has above average shields and energy for that generation of Warframe. Volt is a male Warframe…”

“I’ll take the Mag. Why do I need a Warframe anyway?”

“Queue up a Mag for Margulis. You need a Warframe because it will allow you to walk around while you’re learning to control your new body. You’re also Tenno now, unless you can think of a compelling reason why our Daughter shouldn’t be.”

“I’m not your Daughter, and I don’t want to go insane.”

“In case it’s escaped your notice, you are not human anymore. You were birthed by Anet and I, over a period of 3 weeks. Generally, if you give birth to someone, that person is your child. Which leads to the next bit, you’re not human, why would you go insane by using a Warframe?”

 

Margulis sways drunkenly as the impact of those words hits and upends her world view. Somewhere deep down she’d hoped and assumed this was just a body prosthetic that looked like a Sentient. But being told that she was no longer human, and that the person telling her had given birth to her, shattered that tenuous hope.

“Was… Was I human before?”

“There are no organic components in Anet’s subframe, so if you were originally, it hasn’t been true for a very long time. If you’re wondering, the reason we didn’t just disconnect the subframe is because the bulk of Anet’s personality has migrated there over the centuries. I would have sooner seen you dead than risk that.”

Margulis tries to back away, and bumps into the ceiling, causing Taylor to laugh, “Hey, don’t worry about it, that was then. This is now, and you are my Daughter. Anyway, I’m going to the Transference room to install the second pod now that we’ll actually need it. Once your Mag’s finished I’ll show you how to change your form. You can ask Anet, but as she’s never been human, her explanations can be a little alien.

“As an incentive, I’ll show you the labs in my Dojo. I’ve even got an Orokin lab there. But you have to go in a Warframe until you’re in control of your assimilation processes.”

“Taylor, I was an Archmedean, I think I can keep control of myself.”

“Then why has the music stopped.”

Margulis freezes as she realises that Taylor is correct, the annoying music has stopped. While she’s trying to work out what she did, Taylor leaves.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

When the Mag finishes building, Anet goes into the living quarters. There she finds Margulis, having formed a face, probably without even realising, staring at the music player as if it’s offended her.

“Margulis, your Mag has finished building. It’s been three days.”

Margulis jumps, and her face disappears as she spins in the air, “Where did you come from?”

“I just flew in here, you seem rather intent on the music player.”

“It’s so frustrating, I know that something is going on with it. Taylor says I’ve taken control of it, but I can’t find it.”

“Would you like me to guide you?”

Margulis is about to decline when the fact that it’s been three days registers, “If you could. I can see I need to set myself alarms.”

“I’m going to join with you slightly, and direct your senses to what’s happening. At least you’re not Taylor, who started looking at subatomic particles in her first few hours.”

“We can do that?”

Anet looks confused, “Yes, we can sense the strong, weak, electromagnetic, and gravitational forces.”

“Do you have any idea how much easier my work would have been if I could do that. Instead of interpreting the results of the instruments in my lab? Stars above, I’d have cracked the Warframe power supply problem in months instead of years. How did you do it?”

Anet’s subframe shrugs, “Not sure, but I know you can’t modify plant photosynthesis for a different solar radiation input, without being able to sense the electromagnetic spectrum. Then we needed to make some exotic elements, because the Tau system didn’t have them. Oh, my favourite project was a fish that used fusion to create heavier elements naturally.”

“Why did you do that instead of making a matter transmutation engine?”

“Firstly, we were sent to terraform the system. Secondly, what’s that? We were sent with Geological, Biological, and Astro-geological records, not technological.”

“So how were you so successful against us?”

“We are technology. We don’t need to understand technology to take it over.”

Margulis slumps in the air, “Can you guide me to what I’m obviously missing please?”

 

Anet joins with Margulis, and gently guides her attention to the tiny flecks of her that she is shedding regularly. Then she shows her how they’ve burrowed into the music player and attached themselves to most of the components inside. Margulis is absolutely fascinated when Anet injects some of herself, and shows her how to manipulate things internally.

 

Reluctantly, Margulis allows herself to be herded away from the music player, that is now a sea of endless possibilities.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Taylor is sat on the floor painstakingly putting together a bundle of fibres for the 20^th time since she started wiring up the new pod to the existing systems. She doesn’t look up when she feels Anet lead Margulis into the transference room. However, she does drop a handful of fibres when Margulis shouts at her, “What do you think you’re doing?”

Taylor grumps, “Lining up all 750 fibres in the right order for the new pod.”

“Ok, let me rephrase it, why are you doing that?”

“Because the pod won’t work if I don’t.”

“Taylor, I recognise these pods, they’re modified from pods that we used to use in the infirmaries. You just need to eject the plug and ensure that all the holes are filled. Put the plug back in and set it to configuration mode.”

“How exactly am I supposed to do that? It’s not like the pods come with a control panel.”

“Taylor, do you remember all the implants we had to force on you?”

“Yeah, I swear my head was more metal than brain by the time you finished.”

“You use those. It’s just basic interfacing.”

“Margulis,” Taylor says slowly, “What do you mean it’s just basic interfacing?”

“Everyone’s taught how to use them, the various displays are just for children while they’re brains are maturing, and then while their brains are building the connections needed to use the implants. The oldest of you would have started learning about them a matter of months after…”

Anet briefly joins with Margulis to offer comfort, “Margulis, the Tenno were turned into weapons. I didn’t even know that about the implants, and I was their caretaker.”

“No, no. You’re all Orokin, it’s your birth-right. How else would you have functioned in society?”

Swallowing her pride, Taylor asks slowly, “Margulis, would you be able to help me get this pod setup please? What do you need in order to start teaching Anet and I how to use the implants we have?”

 

Deliberately pulling in her indignation, Margulis triggers the plug eject mechanism. “Taylor, who took over from me, after…”

“Ballas did, though we never actually saw him. He arranged for our lessons and also pushed forward with Transference. This was after you stole our memories of course. Some of us kept up with the exercises you taught us after that. They were also the first ones to wake up.”

“Taylor,” Margulis says gently, “your memories were never stolen, just suppressed while you learnt control. One of your implants controls your access to them, and as you learnt to use them you’d have naturally been able to restore them. We couldn’t tell you, otherwise you’d all go looking for that implant.”

“But Teshin said.”

“I remember Teshin, he was a Dax assigned to guard us. By extension you as well. He disagreed with our decision to remove your memories, even temporarily.”

“What about Rell?”

“He had specialist people looking after him, but he kept running away. There were 10 of us, and the few Dax we were assigned, to look after 2000 of you. We just didn’t have the ability to give him the specialised attention he needed. We were researchers not child development specialists.”

“But I remember you removing my memories right after kicking him out.”

“Taylor, may I access your implants please?”

“Anet, can you join with me while she does?”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

Margulis kneels down beside Taylor, “Taylor, I’ve just got word. Rell didn’t go back to his foster family. A few of the Dax are missing too.”

“Why? Why did you send him away like that?”

“Because the light touch wasn’t working. You know that he becomes agitated when the other children make fun of him, and loses control over his void abilities. This in turn causes them to panic and lose control as well. We’ve lost good people to accidents caused by this, we can’t afford for it to happen again.”

“Then why didn’t you let me go with him?”

“Taylor, you know why. Beside which, if he was kidnapped, you would have been taken too.”

“But he was my friend, my first friend after Emma. And I promised Kay that I’d look after him.”

“Taylor, you need to calm down.”

Taylor screams “Don’t tell me to calm down.”, sparks of void energy jump off of her as her emotions run out of control, a couple of them catching Margulis in the eyes.

“Sedate her, Sedate her. She’s having an episode.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Only the fact that Anet is joined with her, stops Taylor from lashing out when the memory is released, along with a lot more that she wasn’t even aware was still locked away.

 

Margulis turns away, “Now you know. I’ve turned that implant off for now. If you need to use it later, you can, once you know how to use them. I’ll go back to the Living Quarters now.”

Anet catches her and pulls her into the join, where they both reaffirm that she is their Daughter. No matter what happened in the past, that won’t change. Taylor also shares her last few years at school, and the parallels that happened with Rell. When the joining ends, Margulis cries without tears.

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Learning Curve

 

With Margulis’ help, reconfiguring both pods is finished in little more than an hour. The original pod had a few cables, to do with location information, misaligned; leading to it not reporting the location of the connected occupant correctly.

“Margulis?”

“Yes Taylor?”

“I was wondering. The Cephalons are moving the Lotus’ systems into the void soon. This means that Anet is going to need to put in an official appearance as The Lotus. Well, erm, do you want to go with her? I mean it’s not so much more effort to spin up a second Spectre, and well, Anet’s subframe was originally your body.”

“I think I’d like that.”

“Well, with that decided, let’s get you into your mag. Join with me and I’ll show you how I change shape. I’ve found that it helps if you concentrate on your self-image.”

 

Margulis finds joining a more natural process than the first few times it happened. She feels a wave of approval when she realises that it’s her new natural. She supposes that it’s like moving your arm… That thought is derailed as Taylor tugs on her awareness to look at something she’s doing. What she feels is a bit like watching a Dax doing a complex kata, you know you can do it yourself, but you have no idea where to start.

Sensing her confusion, Taylor starts again, and sends an image of looking in a mirror, that holds the shape she wants, then making herself look like that.

 

When she still doesn’t get it, Taylor shoves an image of a blue, white, and red striped shiny ball at her and forces her into that shape. It feels much like it did when the Dax tried to teach her how to do one of their Kata’s, by putting her limbs in the right places. Feeling herself be picked up and bounced off a wall, she realises that she really was over thinking it. Hesitantly, she pictures herself in her favourite outfit and pushes. It feels like she’s using a muscle that she’s never exercised before, as it hurts and complains all the while as she’s doing it. Eventually, she stands awkwardly on the floor of the Transference room.

 

Taylor smiles, “Well done. How does that feel?”

“Awkward,” – Margulis raises a hand and looks at it – “it doesn’t feel like my body. No, it does, but…”

“I know, it’s not the way that your body defaults to if you don’t do anything. We’re, Anet and I, in the process of trying to help the Entrati family, in the hope that they can remember where specific labs were. We also want to locate the Zariman.”

“Why would you want to do that, it was decommissioned.”

“I saw someone from my home world in Cetus a Month or so ago.”

“Where?”

“It’s a village on Earth.”

“Oh… right. It’s been more than 800 years.” – Margulis frowns – “Why does seeing someone from your home world mean finding the Zariman?”

Taylor looks torn in indecision, so Anet touches her gently, “Taylor, the Orokin are long gone. Margulis is family, not Orokin.”

Taking a deep breath, which Margulis idly notes is the only time Taylor has breathed, Taylor holds out both hands, “I’m going to give you the memory of when I first arrived here. Margulis, this will feel far more intimate than the joining we’ve been doing with you so far. If you feel uncomfortable, pull away and we’ll find another way.”

 

They are all drawn into a joining that is hugely intimate, their souls are bared and nothing about each other is hidden. Including from themselves. Without the human justifications and rationalisations, Margulis realises that there is a lot she’s ashamed of in her past when she compares it to Taylor and Natah’s pasts. Situations where the politicking of the Orokin forced her to compromise her ideals, or how she sees/saw those that aren’t Orokin as less, not human in some way.

As she becomes a scared teenager in a metal box, the scent of rotting flesh overpowering in the enclosed space. The sting of insects biting her ankles where she’s standing in whatever is causing the scent. Bruises and abrasions sting on her knuckles and her throat is sore from screaming for help. No implants, no way to call for help, just a dark metal box. Margulis realises with a start that if she’d known about this, she’d have seen Taylor as less too.

 

When they come out of the join, Margulis pulls Taylor into a hug. “Taylor, when they made the cephalon you, they tried to kill you!”

Grimly Taylor nods, “I know that now. I can even guess why. When I survived, I became too valuable, so they gave me the basic implants and put me in with the civilian population.”

“Now you know why I want to go back. If we can, I’d also like to make myself a subframe from the samples they recorded. Maybe even see if we can get to my home system, just to see how it’s doing, and maybe get some wildlife to increase the diversity on Earth. Now, how about trying out your Mag?”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Margulis sits down in her pod where she watches the cover close silently and activate. Suddenly she’s standing in an unfamiliar body, despite expecting it, she still staggers slightly. Finding some implants in the Warframe, she queries them. As she does, she discovers that the Orbiter has responsive components. When she tries to connect to them, her implants just refuse to connect.

After sending the signal to end transference, she uses her own implants to access the Orbiter’s systems, there she finds the bare bones of a system in place. Certainly, more than she could access with the Warframe. Reactivating Transference she staggers the Mag into the transference room, noting that she’s lacking in proprioception compared to her own body. Laying the body face down on the floor, by the simple expedient of falling over, she ends Transference and heads over to it.

“Right I need a resonance fork, a neural link connector and a… You have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about, do you.”

Both Taylor and Anet indicate in the negative. Tipping her head back Margulis holds the bridge of her nose, “I need to visit an Orokin ship. Please tell me that there are still some around that haven’t been looted.”

“There’s usually a failed attempt to scavenge an Orokin tower in the void. If you get back into your Mag we’ll head there.”

“No, the Warframe doesn’t have the right implants, and the ones it does have aren’t configured correctly. It’s like a child played with the settings then fiddled with them until it worked again.”

Taylor and Anet share a glance, as that’s basically how the Tenno restore all of the Warframes they find.

“Margulis,” Taylor ventures, “Would you be able to just tell us what you need, and how to get it. We’ll then go and get the equipment you need to do the job properly. After all, we have basically been fiddling like children getting stuff working. We know that, and would really rather not be put down because of it.”

Margulis catches herself taking a deep breath, “I will try. For the moment we need to visit an intact Orokin ship. I need to get to the maintenance bay. That’s where they’ll have the basic tools I need to make the tools to make the precision tools I need to do this job properly.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 It takes them an hour to come up with a solution for leaving the orbiter without Warframes that doesn’t endanger Ordis. They settle on having Taylor launch the lander and move it up to the tethered Railjack. Anet and Margulis take the tether to the railjack and, steering clear of the main systems, make their way out of a side airlock. From there it’s a short journey to their insertion point.

 

As Taylor kicks a grate out of the ceiling, then drops down heavily, Margulis says, “Is this a joke?”

“What? No, it’s the only way in unless you want to go through the Grineer ship.”

“No, not that. I’d have said something earlier. I’m looking at the map.”

Taylor and Anet just look at her, “You’ve got the map?”

“Oh yes, I’m just going to activate your implants and send it to you. Anet, you only appear to have implants in me, so I hope this works. Oh, this has Ballas’ fingerprints all over it. I just need to reconfigure your implants correctly Anet, this may be uncomfortable.”

 

Anet actually squirms as it feels like someone has taken a spoon and is stirring around in her mind. Her perceptions go fuzzy and swirly, she can taste puce, and smell purple. Suddenly everything comes back into sharp focus as the implants stop conflicting with her own senses. Her systems start to explore the implants again, quickly matching up reported data with her own senses. “I didn’t know that purple had a scent. What did you do?”

“I have apparently been reconfiguring my own implants since I was born, reborn, recreated, I’ll figure it out later. Anyway, I’ve been reconfiguring them as I know what all the test values should be returning. When I connected to your implants to upload the map, I noticed that someone had set a load of the settings to zero, rather than being configured correctly. As they’re in my, your head. I know what the settings should be.”

Taylor pouts, “What about mine?”

“I would need a calibration tool to check yours, as it all depends on the layout of your brain. Suffice to say that they probably do need calibrating, at least beyond the basic ones that you’ve been using already. I was able to upload the map though, so there is that. I’ll draw your attention to all of the locked doors and reconfigured hallways. One moment, I’ll grey out everything we can access from this point. See how everything important has been sealed off?”

It takes quite a lot of looking for Taylor, but eventually she indicates yes.

“Well, they’ve also moved bulkheads to cover the backs of those doors. You should, might be able to tell. Anyway, we need to go this way. Oh, and don’t shoot at anyone, I’ve told the system that we’re legitimate visitors. That will be cancelled if there is any weapons discharge.”

 

For Taylor and Anet, the next 15 minutes is the most stressful, casual walk, they’ve ever done in one of these towers, since Tenno started to wake up after the old war. After Margulis walked blithely over the third floor plate that should have set of a trap, Taylor finally asks.

Margulis, how comes you haven’t set of any of the traps?

Margulis pauses, and looks back at the floor, “Hmm, oh. It’s quite simple, we’re not registering as Dax, so the testing program has been disabled. Oh, a portable generator. Taylor, do you think we could get one of these onto the Orbiter?”

It takes Taylor a moment to realise that she’s examining a Death Orb, “Ah, erm, not if you don’t want me reflexively attacking it every time I see it. They tend to shoot lasers or send out shockwaves whenever I’m careless and set off one of the pressure plates.”

“Hmm, fair point. It’s not the best format either. Oh well, this way.”

 

Eventually they reach a blank wall, that their updated maps agree is a blank wall.

“Ah, here we are. Give me a second.”

Anet ventures, “Ah, Margulis, the map says that this is a blank wall.”

“That’s because it is my dear. But it’s a very special blank wall, as it backs onto a void that is on the interior of the ship. That means that, when I send the right signal it calls a maintenance shuttle and then we can walk through the wall just like this.” Margulis proceeds to walk straight through the wall, before leaning back out, “Coming?”

 

Walking through the wall, they find themselves in a small shuttle car that has four comfortable looking seats and no windows, displays, or any other visible means of control or propulsion, “You’ll need to sit or duck so that I can close the door, then we’ll be off to the maintenance suite.”

Less than a minute later, they exit the pod into a featureless grey room.

 

“Well, here we are, through that door over there is the computer core, on the opposite side is the main power core.”

After sharing a glance with Anet, Taylor raises her hand, “Sorry for being the stupid student here Miss, but we’re in a large featureless grey room.”

“Anet, is it featureless grey for you too?”

“It is. Though I can feel different systems around, there’s nothing to indicate what the room should look like.”

“You’re doing better than I am.”

“It’s just practice Taylor. You’ve only been a sentient for a few months. Frankly I’m amazed that you were able to take over the lander when I was incapacitated.”

“I’ve found a talent for learning under pressure.”

Margulis shakes her head, “This is likely to be fairly incomprehensible to you two then. So these rooms are designed to be used by anyone, because of this they use an active overlay. This means that they query your implants and then display the room using the colours and symbology that you’re used to. So, in theory a Dax could come in and do repairs as efficiently as a mechanic, or even a researcher like myself. The room itself has a variety of recessed furniture, such as this table.” – a featureless grey rectangle rises out of the floor – “For me, this table has all the buttons and displays that I’m, I was used to in my lab. The first that I’m going to make is a Resonance Fork. It effectively a general purpose key for our technology. When you wave it over a surface it will vibrate when it finds a lock, you can then query the Fork and send the correct permissions. Or, if you know what you’re doing, bypass the lock. If I hadn’t known what to look for with the emergency maintenance access, we’d have needed one of these to get through any of the inactive locked doors. Of course, there’s far more complicated keys out there, but those are reserved for highly secure areas.”

Taylor grouses, “Yeah, I know. The dragon keys play havoc with Warframe systems.”

“They shouldn’t do, if you have one on the orbiter I’ll have a look. They should just contain a mini computer with a cypher in them.” – Margulis picks up something that looks nothing like a fork – “Here you go, you can give it a go on the wall over there. The door there leads to the Power core so the governing systems won’t try to kill you if you make a mistake with the device.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 As Taylor takes the key and waves it around the wall randomly, Anet moves closer to the table. Right on the edge of her senses she can see something. As Margulis continues to talk as she works, Anet examines the implants again. One of them is very active, so, experimentally, she connects it to her visual processors.

The room explodes into colour as the different systems show up in a different view of the electromagnetic spectrum. Now she has an input her systems rapidly work on extracting the communication key and protocol from the implant, before turning them into something she understands. As soon as that’s done she speeds up her processes until she matches and then exceeds the communication capabilities of the crippled cephalon that looks after the ship.

 

Initiating a join with the vessel, she learns everything about the dying Cephalon and its role on the ship. It’s less than a moments thought to activate the actual defences, clear out all of the organics on the vessel, as well as break down the docked ships for energy. Within 5 minutes the non-essential parts of the ship have been repurposed to provide a kilometre long park and turn the organics into the flora and fauna needed for the ship to sustain itself. It is a heady experience being able to do all of this without seeding herself through the entire ship. Something enters the join with her, and she pulls in her partner to show her what she’s done. She gets a sense of pride from them, as well as an insistence that she exit the join because someone can’t join them.

 

Reluctantly she pulls away from the vessel, but not before passing the communication key to her partner, so that she can enjoy this experience herself in the future.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 The first that Taylor and Margulis know of anything going wrong is when the table recedes into the floor, and Margulis swears. Turning around curiously, Taylor watches as Anet floats into the centre of the room, and starts to glow. Around the room, streamers of energy start to flow to the centre where Anet, no Natah starts to grow. Where before her subframe looked like it was reclining in a seat, it now looks like it’s wearing Natah’s main chassis like a cloak, or suit of powered armour, the only visible part being the head and top part of the chest.

 

“Taylor, what’s going on?”

“I have no idea! What was she doing before this started?”

“She was looking at the table oddly.”

“I keep forgetting that she’s never actually been human. Margulis, with the systems here, what can she do on the ship?”

“Anything, there’s a hard link to the computing core, and there are EnMat emitters all over the ship.”

 

The lights on the ship go out, and Margulis backs away against a wall, “Taylor!”

“I’m going to join with her, she’s not responding to her comm.”

As Taylor carefully makes her way through the matter beams, Margulis connects to the ships systems then mutters, “Well, that asinine self-destruct instruction, that the council kept trying to push down our throats, now makes sense. We were losing handily when they could turn our weapons and equipment against us. If this is what they’re like when they actually understand how to use our technology, I’m very glad they didn’t.”

 

While Taylor is working to pull Anet out of whatever she’s doing. Margulis watches in awe as the ship undergoes a dynamic reconfiguration, that would have taken a team of engineers months to plan out. She can’t help but wonder if she’ll be able to do the same, but with technology.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Once Taylor has drawn a sheepish Anet out of whatever fugue state she was in, creating the tools and new implants that Margulis wanted is a matter of less than half an hour. Though, with the death of the ships cephalon, Anet has to do the actual work.

 

As they’re walking back to the Lander, Taylor looks around, “Anet, is it me, or does everything living here give off ionising radiation?”

Anet squees happily, “You noticed. I found the nuclear trees in their habitats and decided they were pretty, so I used it as the theme. They all absorb Gamma radiation instead of sunlight, and emit Alpha and Beta radiation in different patterns. Isn’t it wonderful?”

 

Margulis looks around worriedly, only now noticing that the only visible light is coming from Cherenkov radiation.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

An Engineers Touch

 

The three of them return to the Orbiter, and return to the Transference room, where Margulis freezes as there are three copies of them playing with a skipping rope. Anet’s copy even mirrors her new look.

Taylor sighs and says, “Well, I guess we know why you were able to get such a good deal.”

Margulis stares for a second until they vanish, “What? How? Ordis, how did those three get on the Orbiter?”

“Ordis has sensed zero visitors prior to your arrival.”

Taylor touches Margulis gently, “Don’t bother. They can’t be sensed with technology. Any technology. You have just had your first encounter with what Tenno call ‘The Man in the Wall’”

“What are they?”

Anet grouses, “Frustrating to analyse.”

“They are beings, or maybe even aspects of a single being, that live in the void. Each and every one of us, Tenno that is, made a deal, or in your case were part of a deal, that granted us void powers.”

 

Before they go to do their own things, Taylor grabs the other two, “What Anet did today must stay between the three of us. If even a whisper of our involvement gets out, every faction will be gunning for us. Ordis, that includes you too.”

Margulis looks confused while Anet looks resigned, “Why would it be a problem?”

Anet explains, “Numerically, the Tenno are the smallest of the three main factions in the solar system. However, due to our individual power, along with the fact that we are mostly impartial mercenaries, that occasionally do ‘charity’ work for small groups and colonies that are in trouble with the Grineer, Corpus, or Infested. We are mostly left in peace, apart from the odd assassination contract. Those are usually only taken out on our members when a faction objects to their operations, or research, being set back by months or years. They don’t go after our relay stations or orbiters, and we don’t make an example of them. If they knew I could do that, they would join forces to eliminate or control us. That would simply be because we would go from being a group with very little in the way of direct military might, to being able to hop into the void and come out with a ship that out classes entire armadas. Then consider that both factions actively investigate and mine out the Orokin ships in the void. They do it because it offers scientific insights, what would they learn if they could control one of us. As it stands, just acknowledging that we’ve found and revived you is going to paint a target on our backs. After all, we, the Sentients were very through when we eliminated the Orokin, and if they had accepted my, our children, they would probably be in charge now.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 It takes a week before Margulis is finished with her modifications of the Mag Warframe. After that, Taylor and Anet have to figure out how to prevent Margulis ending transference while her Warframe isn’t on the orbiter. Once they do, they kick her out of the Lander with a basic loadout of weapons and a mission to kill all the Grineer in a factory on Earth.

 

When she complains, their answer is “You are Tenno now. This is part of what Tenno do. We deal with the problems that other people can’t.” When she dies the first few times, they hold her and join to provide comfort and reassurance. When she finally gets frustrated, and her void powers manifest, they’re there with advice and comfort. As she finally starts to see the life outside her Lab, they’re with her and helping her.

 

On the other hand, they’re also there when the only facility in the Dojo that gets any sort of positive comment is the Dry Dock.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “This is my Dojo, I’ve been working on it slowly for a couple of hundred years.”

Margulis looks around curiously, “I like the Décor. Though there don’t seem to be any active systems.”

Taylor shrugs, “It is what it is, we can tinker with it later. Anyway, I’ve got a transporter here to the different parts of the Dojo. Unless you really want to walk, select Orokin keys from the list, that will take us to the Orokin Lab.”

 

“What is this?” – Margulis walks around the ‘Orokin Lab’ – “There is absolutely nothing useful here. You’ve got the shell of a very basic lab, but it’s like someone took a museum piece and bolted on a fabricator. Where’s the design systems, the prototypers, the Simulation systems? There isn’t even a calculator for the sake of Dax. They had better systems than this in classrooms. Let’s have a look at the manufacturing system.”

Margulis pulls out one of the tools she made and uses it to dismantle a panel, “Well, no wonder you’re having so much trouble with your keys. The system is using a sintering system to create a techno organic skeleton, that a second process will grow the key on. No matter how good, sintering just isn’t precise enough for Orokin technology. Neither is crystal growth in a nanite bath for that matter. You can’t place extremely long polymer chains without direct molecular manipulation. I suppose this is pretty good for a museum display though, as all the bits will look the part. However, where’s the systems for adding new designs? Even if you came up with something that this would be sufficient for, you couldn’t actually load it.”

 

Eventually they come to the dry dock, “This is actually functional for more than just a poor version of a fabrication table. It’s a pity there’s no on-site structural fabrication facilities, but it could be worse. I can see how the ability to plug in new plans is available here. As long as the main components are provided, the machines and people around can do the actual work. Cy, are these actual people?”

Taylor startles, “Why are you asking Cy?”

Cy’s voice coming from the console precludes Margulis’ response, “Negative, they are specialised Spectres moulded from the original Railjack support staff.”

“Oh, that’s why.”

Margulis looks thoughtful, “Cy, you seem to have a better grasp on things than Ordis does. Do you know why everything seems so… broken?”

“Affirmative, Orokin systems were relocated to the void to prevent access by Sentient forces. Limited, disparate systems were implemented instead. Stated intent, to retrieve assets after war.”

“Why were the Railjacks allowed then?”

“The Reliquary system prevented hostile take over by Sentient Forces.”

“What is the Reliquary system?”

“Unknown, contents and key are not processable by Cephalons.”

“All Cephalons?”

“Affirmative.”

“I see. Well, let’s go and look at this system, if you don’t mind Cy?”

“Cy is present in the dojo, also no railjack ship has ever been suborned by Sentients in the history of their production.”

“One final question, what were Dojo’s originally?”

“They were a base designed for Dax and Tenno to provide equipment and quarters during the war.”

Margulis forms arms just so she can throw them in the air in exasperation, “That explains so much. They were designed for meatheads. No offence to you Taylor, but the Dax weren’t exactly educated to Orokin standards. There’s a lot that was wrong with my society in hindsight, but at the time it was perfectly normal. Hmm, it seems that recent events have had a much larger impact on my personality than I thought. Oh, I like this, someone put real thought into making reconfiguration of Railjacks quick and easy. I do have a quick question though, what’s a Mod?”

Taylor shrugs, “I dunno exactly, we find them around and they’re useful for most of our equipment. Here, this is one of them.”

Taylor initiates a trade and sends over a Mod.

“Taylor, this is just a predefined configuration module. Why are you… Right, you don’t have access to the tools or training needed to make the changes yourself. That’s probably what keeps striking me as being wrong with the orbiter too. Anyway, we’re at the entry pad, how exactly do we board the ship?”

Taylor laughs, “You trigger the airlock and then jump in.”

“You want me to jump, from here?”

“Hey, it’s not that far, watch.”

“Taylor!”

Anet shakes her head, “Taylor really doesn’t consider the limitations the rest of us ex-mere mortals had. Granted, for a long time I was only pretending, but it was very convincing without my main frame.”

“What do you mean?”

“Even when she first rescued me, she was like this. You should have seen her trying to walk around without her warframe. She’d occasionally jump and just manage to catch herself when she didn’t go as far as she expected. Of course, she took that as a challenge to make void jumping as instinctive as the acrobatics she does in her Warframe.”

“She’s nothing like the timid girl we had to coax into making more friends than just Rell. What happened?”

“She cares, she cares a lot. And she failed. In the early days we lost a few colonies to infested outbreaks that she tried to save. This was before she regained her memories, and those events pushed her to get better, to learn everything she can. Strata Relay, around earth, was once destroyed, and Taylor led the Tenno in reprisals on the Grineer. Inventing new tactics and uses for her abilities on the fly. Since then, they’ve occasionally threatened to do it again, and Taylor hits a couple of their more important facilities. They quickly shut up after that.”

“Well, despite the fact it might be foolhardy, I’m going to teach both of you basic science, research, and engineering. Well, here goes, I’m going to try to board now.”

 

“So this is the Reliquary, my tools are indicating that it contains void energy. But nothing beyond… Was that a face!? Taylor, Cy, did the Railjack get designed before or after the Zariman incident?”

“Sorry I don’t know, why?”

“Cy does not have records of those events.”

Margulis shakes herself, “Because, if it was done before. That might be a person or creature from the void in there.”

Anet starts to say, “There are no such things in…” before trailing off as she recalls seeing her own doppelganger on the Orbiter.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Margulis looks at her finished lab in pride. It’s finally finished, and all she had was a single resonance fork, camping generator and small, handheld, high fidelity EmMat device. With those she made her basic computing platform and programmed it with a copy of the systems from the ship. After that she made a computer-controlled arm for her EmMat and mounted the computer on it. With that done she was able to start on a better computing core, one that could handle the specifications for a better power core and a basic omnidirectional EmMat. Using her Mag she was able to easily transport the new core, computing, and EmMat ensemble to the nearest power room. There she spent a day planning out an in-place upgrade of the generators to one that an Orokin facility would use. With the full suite of implants, she was really starting to appreciate her Mag, as the control over magnetism it gave her, made moving things around as simple as bolting an iron plate to the bottom of whatever it is. Upgrading the generator then necessitated upgrading the power runs in the entire facility to handle the new supply. So as she was doing that, she made a second table sized EmMat assembly and grabbed a basic brain out of a Helios that the Corpus research could produce. She gave that the instructions needed to recognise an un-upgraded Generator and run the upgrade program she’d made the first time. Moving her hand held ensemble to a floating platform, she replaced all the runs she needed to in order to power her new lab. Finally, with all that done she had to make a trip to Venus where some of the old research labs were.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 

Taylor taps her foot impatiently as Margulis trails off, “Sorry, I got carried away and you were there when we went to Venus. I’m just so happy to have a decent lab to work in again. The pod over there should be able to comfortably accommodate your natural form. So I want you to get in and return to your normal shape, then just relax. I’ll be monitoring your implants and stimulating them to see what happens. It will feel weird and uncomfortable, and you will probably start tasting colours, and maybe smelling numbers. Any questions?”

Taylor nods, “Just one, will I lose control the same way that Anet did?”

“You shouldn’t do. I’ve gone over the event with her, and it’s because she started accessing the systems directly, rather than through the implants. Her, I won’t say basic programming, as that’s no longer true. Her subconscious automatically started to treat it the same way it does the rest of her body, like part of her systems. As a result she expanded into it, and started growing faster than she could consciously cope with. Her physical growth via the matter streams was her subconscious increasing the amount of computing power available to her chassis, in order to cope with the vastly increased perceived body size. Unless you’re going to find the maintenance room of another Orokin facility, and then communicate with the facility directly, it won’t happen to you. Anywhere else on the ship, and the governing intelligence would have throttled Anet’s connection and restricted her permissions to the various devices on the ship. It wouldn’t have prevented her from taking it over if she wanted to, but it would mean that she’d need to do it the normal way for Sentients.

“You don’t need to worry about this facility either, as I’ve distributed the computer cores around, so that if they detect a runaway effect like that in the future, they can just isolate that core.”

 

Taylor smiles, “Thanks for explaining that, though you could probably have stopped with ‘You shouldn’t do’. The bit about the subconscious was interesting. Does that mean that we’re lifeforms now rather than constructs?”

Margulis nods, “That was a relief to me too. I was able to scan her programming, and my own afterwards, while there are still structured functions in there. The core personality doesn’t show any discrete structure or design. My own shows even less structure, I will be examining yours at the same time as calibrating your implants. So, hop in the pod and we’ll get started.”

 

Taylor heads over to the pod, and jumps in, “You know, this isn’t going to get you out of running missions. Oh, and the Cephalons moved the Lotus’ systems into the void the other day, so we’ll be looking to have you and Anet show up at a relay in the next week or two.”

 

Activating the pod, Margulis grumbles about how much time 3 missions a week takes out of her research time. At least she doesn’t need to sleep now that she’s adjusted to her new body.

 

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Refit and design

 

With her lab now set up, and the appearance at a Relay looming, Margulis takes her portable engineering setup to the old Orokin lab and looks at it thoughtfully. The organic suspension tube looks like it could be promising. Quickly heading back to the Orbiter with her Mag she looks at the foundry.

“Ordis, is there any way to get designs out of the foundry?”

“No Ma’am, the system was specifically designed to store all designs as energy imprints, so that they could be purged in the event the orbiter was compromised.”

“Two questions, why do you call me Ma’am and the other two Operator, or occasionally Lotus? Also, where has this sudden knowledge come from?”

“Ma’am is Orokin, Ordis precepts preclude addressing you as anything but. Ordis has also been communicating with Cephalons Suda and Cy about the history of the Orbiter. It is frustrating as Ordis has forgotten so much. Though Ordis is starting to believe it was self-inflicted during Ordis’ capture by the Grineer.”

“Mercury Mines, this is unacceptable. Ordis, I need you to dock the Orbiter in the dry dock, and then take the lander and go do something elsewhere.”

“Ma’am what are you going to do?”

“I’m going to overhaul the systems in here, so that things like the foundry aren’t crippled. I’ll also give you a better computing core and powerplant while I’m at it. Might as well add a prototyping system to the foundry, as well as a recording function so that we no longer need to keep looking for the same blueprints all the time. Why they decided to call them blue prints I have no idea, they’re really skeletal structures that the system grows the finished product on. While I’ve got the ship in the dry dock I’ll also repair the damaged rooms so that they’re airtight again. That will give us some more space, maybe…”

Ordis quietly docks the Orbiter and leaves while Margulis continues to think aloud.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 It’s almost two weeks later when an irritated Anet boards the Orbiter, “Margulis, what do you think you’re doing?”

Margulis pulls her head out of a panel in the wall, “Oh, hey I’ve made you a series of gardens below the Dry Dock, just take the elevator from the back. It’s two floors down. Each one has its own EmMat and interface system as well as a whole pile of organic material I bought cheap from the corpus. I recommend switching off your sense of smell before you go in though.”

Anet turns around to look at her new gardens before, with an effort, she stops and turns back to Margulis. “That’s not what I’m here for. You’ve been holed up in here for 8 days, Taylor’s been playing in your lab, and I’ve been stuck using Cy to run Railjack missions because the Orbiter is currently out of commission. We also need to make an appearance at a relay in two days time. You need to get the Orbiter operational in the next few hours and then work with me to differentiate our spectres.”

“Oh, has it really been that long? Sorry, I lost track of time. Let me just put this panel back on and it’s done. Oh, and I turned the old Orokin lab into a spectre design studio. The specimen tube will how hold a spectre and allow you to change the features and textures. There’s also a wardrobe function, where you can upload a scan of clothes, or scan them there and then. Those can then be applied to the spectre and recoloured as required. What else was there. Oh, yes if you use implants to do the design, the spectre will have a full suite of implants. If you use the simple interface, it will only have the implants required to use those interfaces. There, done.”

“Margulis, if all you needed to do was replace a panel, what have you been doing?”

“Oh, well I designed your gardens and got Emmy to make them. I upgraded the Orbiter systems to use full Orokin tech with the simple interfaces left behind. Then I redesigned the systems so that EmMats are decoupled from the computer system. I tested them too with my sentient body. They work 5% slower, but in return making a direct connection, as another Sentient would do, requires that you manually control 10 to the 7 processes individually. Granted, that’s to make a strand of DNA. However, connecting through the implants provides a simplified interface, still more complicated than the ones in my lab, but I think it would be safe to roll it out as a blueprint to the ships cephalons. I did a similar thing with the Mod station, it works the same way through the simple interface. But if you use your implants it has a full programming suite and can be used to copy Mods onto new chips too. I’ve upgraded the arsenal so that it doesn’t use the pad anymore, instead it uses EmMats that I’ve installed around the ship. The transference room now has three sentient compatible pods in it, and I’ve hidden all the hideous cabling. It’s also now the default location that our Warframes will appear. On the second floor there’s a standalone maintenance room with research grade EmMats and sensors in it. I’ve also made a separate entertainment room to the existing Living Quarters. There was one more thing I did. Oh that was it. I made a cuddling room that also holds Taylor’s plushie collection. It has the most extravagant bed I could remember seeing, set at floor level as well as shelves around the room for all of the Plushies.”

 

“Margulis, has anyone ever told you that you have the attention span of a verine?”

“Hey, I’m not that bad.”

“How many projects do you have on the go?”

“38, no 37.”

“And how many are you working on right now?”

“Five.” – Anet just looks at her while they’re heading to the Orokin lab – “Ok, maybe I am that bad.”

“How did you get anything done back then?”

Margulis reluctantly admits, “One of the people helping me with the Tenno was there to take notes and keep me on track. I also needed to sleep otherwise I’d start falling over randomly. Oh, and can I scan your subframe in detail at some point, I have a theory I want to check out. If I’m right, Taylor and I won’t need whatever facilities are buried beneath Deimos. Don’t get me wrong, I’d still like to see them. However, I think you could persuade our bodies to grow one.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

While they’re looking at the spectres, Anet chooses to just go with her iconic outfit and helmet. As soon as she’s confirmed that choice, she sends her subframe to Margulis’ lab while her main frame leaves to play in her new gardens.

As she walks in, she calls out to Taylor, “Hey Taylor, what have you been doing?”

“Oh, hey. I’ve been trying to make a pistol from my home world. It’s been an interesting exercise in using my implants to control the equipment in here.”

“Any luck?”

“I think I’ve got the design for bullets down, but I’m struggling with the propellent and ignition cap.”

“Bullets?”

Taylor laughs, “Yeah, I know. With what we have here it seems ridiculous, but it’s what we used on earth. A solid slug of lead travelling at around the speed of sound at sea level on earth and entirely chemically powered. To the point where the escaping gas from the explosion would automatically load the next bullet. I’m also learning chemistry at the same time, as I need something that’s explosive enough to fire the bullet, but not so explosive that it damages the gun in the process.”

“I see. What advantage does it have over the weapons we use?”

“Absolutely none, I just wanted to make one. Actually, there may be one, maybe possible advantage. It doesn’t rely on anything except mechanical action and the chemical propellent in the bullet. Even that would be so situational as to be not worth using because of it. The actual gun is on the side over there.”

 

Anet is still looking at the gun, trying to get her head around how it works, when Margulis comes in, and zeroes in on the gun like a corpus after a profit opportunity.

“What’s this?”

“It’s a primitive weapon from Taylor’s home. Apparently, it fires solid slugs using explosions. There’s no electronics, no systems to take control of, the worst I can think of doing to it is blocking one or more of the gears in it.”

“Wait! Really?”

“Yep, I can’t get my head around how it’s supposed to work though.”

Margulis holds out a hand, “Do you mind if I have a look?”

“No, go ahead.”

 

Taking the gun, Margulis lays it down on a corner of the table that Taylor isn’t using. Taking a scan of the entire structure she projects it in the centre of the room.

“Hmm, a carbon ferrous alloy for the body and moving parts. Long chain polymers for the padding on the grip. Smooth cylinder along the inside of the length of the weapon. Taylor does the bullet have any form of spin inherently?”

“Not that I know of, why?”

“I’m just taking your plans for a bullet, right, how fast should one of these exit the weapon at?”

Anet looks on in interest, “Taylor said around the speed of sound at sea level on earth.”

“Right, so if we project the paths of 10,000 rounds fired from this point, we get a circle around 100mm across at 50m. If I impart an angular momentum of 50m/s and run the same simulation it produces a circle around 5.78mm. So add two grooves, that imparts 10m/s, 4 grooves is 25, 6 grooves is 36. 8 is 35, the barrel is probably too short. So if we then run the simulation again with just the bullet travelling with 6 grooves, we get… a circle 6mm in diameter. Taylor, this is absolutely genius for its simplicity. If you’d suggested this design before we locked away your memories, you’d have been immediately elevated to one of the most prestigious Orokin alive at the time. Of course, you’d have probably died shortly after that as you wouldn’t have been given a Warframe.”

Anet looks confused, “I don’t get it. Why is this so revolutionary?”

“That’s just it, it isn’t revolutionary. In fact it’s positively crude, which is why it would have been so important. Let’s look at a Lato in comparison,” – she brings up a Lato next to the pistol – “they look similar at first glance. Now see this large part under the barrel on the Lato, that’s where the electronics and material for the rounds go. It has a smart material reservoir that you fill, and an exhaust port for the spent material. Taylors gun instead ejects the spent material after every shot. The Lato has to be preconfigured with the sort of bullets it’s going to fire. Taylors gun doesn’t. Instead you can load any combination of bullets you want and it will fire those. The Lato can be reconfigured to adjust range, muzzle velocity, and even the spin imparted on the bullet, Taylors gun can’t. The Lato is packed full of technology to do all of that, Taylors gun has none. The Lato links to smart aiming systems automatically. Taylors gun can’t. Normally, this would make the Lato the superior choice in just about every situation.

“However sentients exist. Suddenly, most of those plus points on the Lato become downsides, and the limitations on Taylors gun become positives. Because of the clip system, Taylor! You need a stronger spring in your design. You can have a smart clip that takes smart-material and converts it to bullets for the gun. Because the clip is also in a known location on the weapon, the clip could also connect to a smart aiming system. You could also trivially make an auto reloader that you place a clip in and it fills it with freshly manufactured bullets. When you come across a Sentient, your bullets are already loaded so they can’t disable your weapon without interfering with the mechanics, which are far less sensitive than the systems in the Lato. In many cases it looks like a hard tap would also dislodge most attempts to prevent the weapon from working.

“In the current climate, with Sentients being a myth again, everyone would pick the Lato as it uses less material per shot, and it has far more customisation options. As and when the Sentients start to come out of the asteroids again, well. A purely mechanical weapon system will be worth a lot. Probably only to the Grineer though, as the corpus have too much augmentation to worry about having their weapons disabled.”

Taylor calls over, “We used the same basic theory for nearly all our guns, from fully automatic weapons that could fire thousands of rounds a minute, to massive cannons that launched shells as thick as Mag’s thigh. Though the latter need reloading manually. The biggest problem is that our weapons only need smart material with the right composition to work, while different style guns need different bullets, even amongst the same class of weapon. From a resource point of view, unless you can utilise smart materials somehow, this gun will only ever be a novelty. Anyway, didn’t you want to examine Anet’s subframe, that she has kindly left here while she’s doing something else.”

“You’re right!”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Margulis leads Anet over to a large pad on the floor, “I’d like you to stand here. I’m going to construct a tube around you and fill it with argon. Once that’s done I’m going to use the EmMat above you to scan you down to the molecular level. Do you think you can remain absolutely motionless for 10 seconds, or do I need to manufacture some restraints?”

Anet nods.

 

Margulis walks away and a transparent sapphire cylinder forms around Anet. When the scan begins, the gas glows from the energy being used in the process. As it finishes and Margulis is looking at the results, she suddenly flies into the air in a rapid spin.

“I was right, I was right!”

Releasing Anet with a wave of her hands, Taylor walks over from her tinkering, “What were you right about?”

“Look at this, see how the cell structure is identical to a scan of a human?”

They both nod.

“But if you look at the molecular composition, they’re completely different. Your systems converted each and every cell in my body into it’s own little machine.”

Anet frowns, “Wouldn’t that mean I should be able to change this part of me the same as I do my main chassis?”

“No, that’s just it. So our bodies are made from nanoscale components that can reconfigure on the fly. Our systems and intelligence are all predicated on the sheer quantity of the right components. When I scanned myself, I identified 500 distinct components, 10 of which are involved in our intelligence. The human body only has 200 distinct types of cell, 3 of which are brain neurons. What Anet’s systems did is create new components to replace the cells in my body one by one, including my egg cells. If we can find your DNA Taylor, then we can create a fertilised egg cell for you and convert it into one of these machines. Implant that cell on your connectors and it should grow you a body in around 6 weeks. Of course, as I’m your daughter I should take an egg from each of you and combine them for my own body…”

“OI!”

“I’m serious.”

“How certain are you?”

“I’m not. Oh the theory is sound, but I can’t simulate it as it’s too complex for the systems we have here. It might still be better to find the flash cloning technology that we used to extend our lives. As oppose to the cloning technology that we used to create the Grineer.”

Anet stops to think, “Wait, does that mean I could have human children?”

Margulis shakes her head, “No, you could have children the human way, but your eggs probably can’t be fertilised naturally. Doesn’t mean you couldn’t have fun finding out though.”

Anet looks vaguely repulsed by the idea, “No thanks, I think I’ll stick to Taylor. And maybe you, depending on how things pan out.”

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Moving On

Nervously, Anet and Margulis step out of the lander onto the Strata Relay. Anet especially, as she’s going to be trying to pilot a Warframe at the same time, once Ordis reaches the Orcus Relay.

 

Initially, they’re just another couple of faces on the relay, even when they arrive at the concourse. Because of this, they lean against a railing to watch the world go by.

“How long do you think it will be before we’re recognised?”

“A minute?”

“I say 5.”

“30 second buffer, what’s the wager?”

“You’ll help me in the lab for a day.”

Anet nods, “Fair, you’ll do a full day of missions.”

“Hey!”

“Add to that, if we both lose, we still have to cover the bet.”

“Fine!”

 

It was exactly 3 minutes and 25 seconds later when the first Tenno recognised The Lotus helmet and approached.

“Are you The Lotus?”

Anet smiles, “I am, and this is Margulis.”

The Tenno pops out of their Ash, “But you died.”

Margulis looks at the Tenno gravely, “I was supposed to have. Sentenced by my own husband to the Jade Light. I didn’t wake up after my sentencing until Taylor, with Anet, pulled me out of a pod. They were there to rescue The Lotus after Ballas kidnapped her.”

Anet takes over, “Given the re-emergence of Ballas, both of us will be staying at a secure location and only appearing remotely.”

All of which had the benefit of being true, even though it was also highly misleading. What they didn’t know is that the Station Manager had recognised them within seconds of their arrival, and had started Holo Recording and prepping the additional concourse floors for use. It’s a song and dance they, and their staff, were well used to, as some of the famous designers would occasionally visit unexpectedly. It was still annoying.

 

Back on the concourse, the First Tenno had messaged their clan to report the return of the Lotus before leaving their frame. They had then messaged their own friends, and the closest of the Tenno not currently busy were just streaming into the concourse now.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Taylor and Anet arrive on the Orcus relay and start to do some of their standard business with the syndicates. When they check in on Darvos, he looks up from his console.

“Is it true that you rescued The Lotus and Margulis?”

Taylor glances at Anet, “Where did you hear that?”

“Haven’t you heard, they’ve turned up at the Strata Relay, and named both of you as having rescued them.”

“#*!%, there goes my quiet life. I asked them to keep that quiet.”

“Darvos promises to tell no one of this conversation.”

“You’ve sold the information already, haven’t you.”

In his office on Venus, Darvos glances down at his console, where he has confirmed the rumour as true, before looking up. “Of course not, customer confidentiality is very important to me.”

Taylor looks at him shrewdly, “10% discount on future purchases for the money you’ve just earned from my outburst.”

Darvos grouses, “And this is why I hate dealing with you Taylor.”

“You know you love it. I keep you on your toes.”

“Yeah, yeah, do you want to buy anything?”

“Let’s see what you’ve got before I answer that.”

“Certainly, and you might as well earn that discount. Is it true that Margulis’ husband kidnapped The Lotus?”

“Ex-husband, I think most people would agree that sentencing your wife to death, is pretty much a death knell to any marriage.”

“What about the fact that Sentients were involved.”

Taylor and Anet share another glance, and Anet says, “I can confirm that is true.”

“How about the fact that Sentients were holding Margulis?”

“They were, though they weren’t aware of that fact. Probably the only reason she’s still alive now.”

There’s a pause, and suddenly Darvos asks, “How about the fact that you and The Lotus are the same person.”

“Darvos, I’m here, answering your questions. Given the fact you keep looking down, you must be getting the information from somewhere.”

Darvos sighs, “Fair, not even Tenno can actually be in two places at the same time. Even though you often fake it really well.”

Taylor laughs, “It’s an artifact of transference, those of us that have awoken again can leave what most people now see as our real bodies.”

Darvos shudders, “You couldn’t pay me to use one of those. So where have the two of you been recently?”

Taylor sighs, “Margulis wasn’t the only one rescued. My Orbiter has been more than a little crowded, while we’ve avoided staying in one place, as the Tenno Cephalons move the Lotus chamber to a secure location.”

“I see. This is my daily deal. I’ve also got your standard deals on air-filtration and basic star ship consumables.”

“Yeah, I’m still letting Ordis handle that. Sorry.”

“I had to try.”

“Well, next stop is New Loka.”

“What? Not going to Strata?”

“And get mobbed by everyone? No thanks. I’ve always been more of a loner, you know that.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 When the allotted time ends, and Margulis and Anet deactivate the spectres, Taylor and Anet finish up their business on Orcus before making their way back to their lander. When they arrive back at the orbiter, they both head for the onboard lab, where Margulis is already flitting from thing to thing.

“Margulis,” Taylor asks gently, “Are you ok?”

“No, it was horrible. I know every single one of their names, and most of them don’t know their own names. Worse were the ones that just didn’t recognise me. Natul cried to sleep for 3 weeks when Dax Leva was reassigned. Hoara needed help when her menstruation started before she was old enough to have the maintenance implants. Shola kept losing their Kubrow toy. Do you have any idea what that’s like? Of course you don’t, you couldn’t. I can’t even have my implants removed anymore, as they’re no longer distinct parts of me. The emotion suppression isn’t working either, as I don’t have any chemicals to supress, or rebalance. How do I deal with this?”

Understanding dawns on Taylors face, and she leaves her Warframe before walking over to Margulis. Gently pulling her away from the tool she’s currently using, Taylor pulls her into a hug, “At the moment, you cry and accept my hug. Going forward, you learn proper coping mechanisms. Let’s go to the nest and you can hug some plushies, throw a few against a wall, and cry your emotions out.”

“I haven’t cried since I was a girl.”

“Then it’s time you learnt how to do it again.”

Anet follows the two to the nest, as she is still learning about these weird things that keep happening to her processing since Taylor kidnapped her. When she arrives, she picks up her condorac and squeezes it.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

“Taylor, you need to connect to the systems and send an image of what you want them to form.”

“If it’s so easy, you do it!”

Margulis forms a ball floating in the centre of the maintenance room, “There you go, simple.”

“I can’t do that.”

“You can, and you will. Thousands of generations of Orokin have been able to do this. There is another way to learn how.”

“What is it, I’ll do it.”

“Hard way it is then. All you need to do is make a door and leave the room. Oh, and the room will start to shrink in an hour. Anet will make sure you’re not cheating too.” Margulis fades from sight as the room changes into a rough stone cave.

“Oh S#&$, I’ll do the ball, I’ll do the ball. Margulis? Anet?”

 

Nearly a day later, Taylor slithers out of a tiny hole that she’s managed to form from the centre of the room to the outside of the orbiter. Anet looks at her appraisingly as she reforms, “Looks like you’ve also perfected your mimic abilities too.”

“You suck, you both suck.”

Margulis smiles, “Create a ball.”

Taylor groans and creates the ball as requested, “How? I’m not inside the room.”

“Omni EmMats like the ones installed in this ship don’t need line of sight to an emitter. As long as you’re in the power field you can manipulate it with your implants.”

“So what’s the point of the Maintenance room?”

“Computing power and precision. Something you’ll find you need less help with than even gifted Orokin’s as we progress into more detailed constructions.”

“What! That’s not enough? It’s taken me months to get this far.”

Margulis shakes her head, “No Taylor, you’ve only just reached the most basic competency that any Orokin would be able to do. Now we start your education in earnest, you’ll be spending 3 hours a day with me on physics, chemistry, and engineering. We’ll both be spending 1 hour a day with Anet on biology and living systems.” – She then grinds out – “And I will be spending 2 hours a day with you on your own specialities.”

“When was this decided?”

Anet looks guiltily at Taylor, “While you were in the room.”

“Fine.” Taylor whines, “As long as we’re also working on finding the Zariman and how to get Margulis and I subframes.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 A new cult called Narmer is slowly gaining traction through the solar system. However its central message ‘The Tenno are monsters, and they massacred thousands of you’ is only palatable to the most ignorant or desperate. In large part because both the Lotus and Margulis make frequent irregular appearances at population centres around the solar system. More than one news outlet manages to do an on the spot interview with one or both of them. Additionally, Taylor is persuaded to make the odd appearance in person with Anet in their ‘native’ forms. Sometimes with the other two, and other times on their own. Slowly, the reasons for the old war unfolds in the news, and the actions of both the Orokin and the Sentients towards the Tenno are made known. This is while the Tenno continue to be mercenaries for hire in order to fund their charitable actions, never knowing that their cephalons are the de facto Lotus, while Anet is the Leader, and maintains Veto over the others.

 

With Margulis now around, more and more Tenno start to awaken from the second dream, as she’s able to name each and every one of them, and tell them stories of their time before her trial.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

A Lead

 

“Margulis, I hate you!” Taylor screams as she ducks in a spectre that is configured for her old operator body, with implants, but without void abilities.

“Taylor, you said yourself that you learn best under pressure. You’ve been struggling with how all the lessons could apply over the last 2 months.”

“I know, but MOT?”

“You have everything you need right there to completely take over that tower.”

“Margulis, I don’t even have an overlay!”

“Well make one then.”

“Oh, yeah, I can do that.”

 

Quickly, Taylor configures a basic map overlay, as well as an FoF system. Finding a door that should connect two sections, but is currently locked, she unlocks it and darts through before locking it behind her. As the computer starts to divert compromised troops her way, she signals the computer to query what crew are active on the tower.

“S#&$, that’s a lot of corrupted, please can I use transference?”

“Nope, we all know you’re doing really well in the combat uses of your natural form. Now you have to show you can do the same with only your implants.”

 

Plotting out a route, Taylor desperately searches for the engineering tube that runs the length of the tower. Sprinting for a closing gap in the coverage of corrupted, she dives through a door and lands on a pressure plate before sliding to stop in front of a death orb. For a couple of breaths she waits to die, then her brain realises that there are lasers spinning overhead. Wait! “Margulis, didn’t you once say that death orbs were portable generators?”

“I did”

Flexing her will, she makes the orb levitate and jams it into the door she just came through, the laser slicing some of the corrupted in half as a bonus. Quickly reprogramming it, she sets it to disable the lasers that are pointing towards her before searching for any more death orbs. Slapping her head she queries the tower for them and gets them nicely displayed on her overlay. As an afterthought she adds EmMats and gasps at just how many there are in the tower.

 

Cursing, as the tower starts to reconfigure to allow the corrupted troops to flank her, she comes up with a plan on the fly. Scurrying off, she locates the nearest death orb that isn’t stopping her from dying hideously. Separating the laser plates she set them to spinning slowly around her while the orb itself follows her around like a puppy. At this point her mood does an about face, and her brain starts seeing her implants as tools to be abused, rather than something that just causes her headaches, because she doesn’t understand the math she’s supposed to know. Slowly and carefully, she makes her way close enough to an EmMat that she can control it directly, and disconnects it from the ship. With an EmMat, one or two death orbs, and a multitude of laser plates, she’s able to start to cobble together some basic droids to carry the lasers and handle the aiming.

 

After an hour she makes her way into the maintenance room, and closes the door. Leaning heavily against the wall, Taylor authenticates herself to the controlling intelligence. As she does she slaps her face, as she realises that she could have done that at the beginning and avoided all of the fighting. Creating a goblet of water, she quenches her thirst before she goes to work suborning the cephalon in charge.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 As Taylor exits the transference pod, Margulis stands there in human form, her hand on one hip, “Well, I don’t think we’re ever going to make an Engineer out of you. Your instincts are all wrong. But you did well. Could you have done better? Probably not, you could have done it faster by marking yourself as friendly from the beginning. But you wouldn’t have learnt anything. At the end you reminded me of Ballas, and the way he could effortlessly make things happen, but always needed help with coming up with something new.”

“Great, now I’m being compared to Ballas. If I become more like him, shoot me please? And make it fatal.”

Margulis laughs, “As long as you don’t start mimicking his flaws, you’ll be fine.”

“Operators, Ordis has good news. Lotus Cephalons have located Grineer facility with probable location of the Zariman. A new Quest has been created.”

Taylor laughs, “Lotus Cephalons?”

“With the Lotus back, it didn’t feel right referring to ourselves as the Lotus.”

“No, I like it. I was just surprised, and happy that you’ve chosen it. How’s Anet doing on her mission?”

“She is having fun Tenno.”

“Margulis, what did you have her doing?”

“Same as you.”

“Ordis, do you have a visual on the inside of her ship?”

“Displaying in the entertainment quarters.”

 

While they’re sat watching the display, Taylor remarks, “She’s absolutely terrifying in a totally oblivious and cute way.”

“I think it’s because she’s dumped all her responsibilities on you and the Cephalons. So, she’s back doing what she loves.”

“I agree, but what she loves is as beautiful as it is terrifying. Last time it was a radioactive landscape, this time… I’m not actually sure what she’s done this time.”

“There’s a lot of radio interference there. Ordis, could you translate the radio spectrum to visible light please?”

“Calculating, showing results.”

“It’s beautiful, how’s it going to survive though?”

“By the looks of things, by absorbing all higher energy bands of light completely and radiating them as radio waves as the waste product.”

“Ordis,” Taylor says suddenly, “Where’s Anet’s main chassis?”

“Locating, it is in the Dojo.”

“That cheating *@##$.”

“What have you worked out?”

“I think she’s using the systems you set up in her gardens to work out what she needs to do. She is then sending those instructions through the implants to make it happen.”

Margulis laughs, “It’s cheating against the spirit of the test, but fully inline with the instructions I gave both of you. Namely, you could only use your implants, no weapons, armour, or other abilities.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 6 hours later, Anet exits her pod once she realises that she’s just fiddling with the details now. She’s not even got to the door before Taylor comes in, while shifting to a human form, and pulls her into a hug. Just as she’s getting used to the sensation, Taylor hesitantly places her mouth on her own.

“Anet love, you are absolutely terrifying. Cute but terrifying.”

“What did I do?”

“Anet, you’ve now made two environments that are absolutely inimical to the majority of life in the solar system. For completely different reasons, but that doesn’t change the fact that they are. Your only reason for doing it is that they were interesting and beautiful. That and the fact you turn my head every time you walk past means that you’re cute and terrifying.”

“Thank you, though I’m not sure what you mean by turn your head.”

Taylor laughs, “Don’t worry, it’s a human thing. Anyway, they’ve found a lead on the Zariman.”

“That’s great news Taylor. Where is it?”

“We don’t know yet, we were waiting for you. Oh, and you might as well bring your chassis back while we’re getting the information.”

“Oh, you noticed.”

“You were working too fast for only using the spectre. Great job on being able to be in both places at once though.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 With Anet’s chassis back on the orbiter, the three of them make their way to the lander where Ordis starts to brief them.

“Operators, we have discovered a hidden Grineer facility deep inside Phobos. It has been overlooked before due to the massive amounts of Corpus there, we now believe that the reason for the frequent Grineer invasions is to transfer resources and products from the fleet to the facility, and the reverse. This is further complicated by the fact that the facility is in the dark zone of Phobos, so the infested are in control.”

Margulis asks, “If there’s so much infested, how are we getting in?”

“The Mycona harvesters have found a safe route, however they have also come under threat from Nef again. Part of Neewa’s price for their aid is persuading Nef that interfering with that colony is always going to be bad for business.”

Anet looks like she’s sucked a lemon, “Neewa? Isn’t she the one that is immune to the infested?”

Taylor touches her and joins briefly, “Yes, she’s the one that I let choose her own destiny.”

Margulis looks between the two of them, “I’m missing something here.”

Taylor sighs, “The Mycona colony are immune to the infested virus. They achieved this because of the Triuna, who has a genetic immunity that can be passed on. But only to children. A side effect of the immunity is a vastly decreased lifespan, measured in a handful of years. I gave Neewa the choice of what to do, and she chose to return to her people to give them time to adjust to not being farmers.”

“Why does it shorten their lifespan?”

“It compromises their immune system, leaving them more susceptible to other illnesses.”

“Would we be able to get her into the Orbiter lab? As it’s something I might be able to help with, without compromising the immunity.”

“Ordis can ask. However, it’s unlikely to change their requirements.”

“I looked after the Tenno because they were children that needed someone to defend them, and nobody else stepped up. Why would that change because this child has a different condition? There’s also the fact that if I can unlock the secrets behind her immunity, it could save thousands of lives a month.”

 

Anet looks at her hands briefly before looking up at the display, “Ordis, suspend all Corpus contracts, and inform them that it’s because Nef has reneged on his agreement to leave the colony be. As soon as we hear from the colony that they are no longer being pressured the contracts will resume. In the event that we do not receive word within 10 days, their contracts will be terminated with no refunds. If there is a hostile takeover, or the colony is wiped out, we will no longer take Corpus contracts while the current board of directors is sitting.”

“But Lotus, how will we afford to keep our ships in good repair?”

“Ordis, have you forgotten who the three of us are? If we have to, we can turn a tower into a maintenance facility.”

“Yes Lotus, Ordis will pass your proclamation to the other Lotus Cephalons.”

“Ordis, remind the Corpus that if we can’t trust them to keep to their own agreements, then how can we trust them to keep to ours.”

 

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Neewa

“My Queen, we have relocated one of the more promising Orokin towers in the void.”

The Worm Queen looks down at the general that so rudely made himself known, “Why did you interrupt the meeting with such prosaic news?”

The general hunches slightly, “My Queen, we were able to get some footage of the inside of the tower, even though it cost us a company of my brothers.”

“Well, play it then.”

“Yes My Queen.”

 

The Worm Queen watches with interest as a bleak landscape appears in her view screen. It seems like the film has been taken in black and white, with a few splashes of colour here and there. That’s until it pans to a Grineer soldier, who’s face has started to bubble and boil, before they collapse. That’s when she realises that it’s not that the film is without colour, it’s the landscape.

 

The video pans to the other members of the unit, only to show that the units without heavy armour are all succumbing to the environment.

Suddenly there is the loud retort of gunfire, as something attacks the squad. As soon as that happens, all of the surviving members of the squad turn on each other, and the last standing survivor limbs back towards the entry point.

“Bzzzzt, commander down, friendly fire. I repeat…”

Finally, the camera falls sideways and the film fast forwards to show an unknown animal nuzzling at the camera, and the picture going fuzzier as it does.

 

Another Grineer reaches down, and takes the still running camera from the body before moving back to the entrance. This process repeats itself as the film speeds up.

 

The Worm Queen looks over to the general, “What, was, that?”

The general shakes his head, “We don’t know. The suit data from the camera shows that radiation levels were increasing steadily as the unit made their way to where they died. Nothing un-survivable until moments before their death, when it spiked to levels seen inside a ship’s reactor. The lifeform that we saw was sending those levels even higher.”

The Worm Queen nods, “Write it off, and let the Corpus find the coordinates. Their board of directors will salivate at the idea of discovering why it’s like that. Let them spend the resources needed to pacify the ship.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Anet looks surprised when Ordis patches Parvos Granum through to her, “Lotus, thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

“What can I do for you Mr Granum?”

“Ouch, that was harsh. Anyway, I am calling to ensure that you are aware that I and my faction have nothing to do with the Board of Directors, or their politicking.”

Anet raises her eyebrows under the hastily donned helmet, “Why would I need to know that?”

“It has come to my attention that certain of my, our, strategic contracts with the Tenno are currently on hold because of something the board or one of their members has done.”

“Indeed, all corpus contracts are on hold for another 8 days. If the Board of Directors has not honoured their own contracts with 3^rd parties at the end of that time, then we will be forced to cancel those contracts, and refuse future service until such time as The Corpus prove that they can be trusted again.”

“I feel that this is failing to take into account the subtleties of the situation that The Corpus finds itself in.”

Anet smiles, “Not at all, if we extend an exemption to one faction of The Corpus, what’s to say that another faction wouldn’t just use that faction’s credentials to hire us.”

Parvos frowns, “I assure you that our security is absolutely top notch, especially the communication codes that we…” He trails off as Anet transmits his private keys to his terminal, “How did you get these?”

“We didn’t use Tenno, if that’s what you’re wondering. Is there anything else you need my attention for?”

Parvos looks down again, “No, no, it appears that I am going to be busy for the foreseeable future.”

 

Anet takes the helmet off and turns back to Margulis, “Margulis, are you ready to go?”

“Just one more minute, I’m just making some changes to this, and then I’ll be ready.”

Anet sighs, “Margulis, that call didn’t even take 5 minutes, how can you be that busy already? ...Margulis, we’re going to see Neewa, whatever you’re doing can wait.”

“Just give me a sec, this is almost done.”

“Margulis, do I need to call your other mother in?”

Margulis snaps her attention to Anet, “No, don’t do that, I don’t want to do another isolation vault.”

“Then put your work down and get your warframe.”

Margulis sighs, “Yes mum.”

“And don’t you forget it.”

 

With no more distractions, the two of them quickly make their way down to the colony while Taylor keeps the Corpus busy, and distracted, at the surface.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

As Anet and Margulis make their way into the colony, and negotiate for a guide. Taylor flits from one Corpus forward base to another, leaving chaos and disabled systems in her wake.

 

As she’s running through her 10^th such base, Nef Anyo appears in her communications window, “What are you doing? You’ve destroyed months of progress, klicks of claimed territory lost, and for what?”

Taylor laughs as she jumps over a corpus heavy unit, changing into her fairy form mid jump and firing from mind air, “I’m pushing you back from the Mycona colony. Why what did you think I was doing?”

“My business dealings with them are none of your concern. And these outposts had nothing to do with that.”

“They are when the colony has hired us to ensure that you honour the agreement, we brokered between you and them last time I was involved.”

“And I have kept to that agreement, I have not taken any hostages or made any threats to them.”

“Uh huh, I suppose that’s why the monthly traders have been continuing to turn up. Oh, wait, they haven’t. And it’s something that started when you began your negotiations.”

“I cannot be held responsible for the actions of independent merchants.”

“Sure, sure, contact the Lotus and sort it out. Once I’ve got the all clear from her I’ll be back in my orbiter before you can drink a glass of scotch.”

 

Nef Anyo hangs up for an hour while Taylor works her way through this outpost. The first that she’s aware of the restoration of negotiations is when a Zanuka Hunter drops onto her head, quite literally. She has maybe a second to transfer out of her warframe before the shields and health crumple.

 

As she does, Alad V opens up a communication with her, “My, my, a little birdy told me that you have been a bad little Tenno. Let’s see how you get on without your fancy armour.”

Taylor laughs, “Did Nef Anyo put you up to this?”

“Not at all Tenno, he merely pointed me at the cause of my lost contracts. I’ve lost some very time sensitive project to Grineer incursions because of that. I think your Titania will be sufficient recompense for that.”

Taylor fires a void blast at the hunter, “You’ll have to keep it first.”

Alad laughs, “I don’t think I need worry about that, as Anyo promised that he’s sending you a present too.”

Just as she’s lining up for another shot at the Hunter, Taylor’s sensors detect a Lynx running over the terrain towards her position. With a change of plan, she instead leaps over the Hunter, touching down just long enough to leave a little of herself behind. Then she turns to face the new threat as the Hunter disengages from the battle and starts heading into Corpus controlled territory.

 

The battle against the Lynx is long and hard, primarily as Taylor doesn’t want to reveal her Sentient status to the galaxy at large. Instead, she relies on her ability to hide in the void, her amp, and the abilities from the Unairu focus school she’s using. Eventually, the Lynx lies on the floor, in need of severe repair to even become operation again. With that done, she leaves the base into infested controlled land, heading after the escaping Hunter, before it reaches a safe location that it can be picked up from. A journey that is unhindered by the need to keep her abilities secret. Unfortunately, the Hunter has too much of a lead for her to catch up, before it is recovered.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

Neewa looks around curiously, at the featureless landing craft, as she’s invited up to a Tenno Orbiter. The secretive ships that they use to travel around the solar system. Oh, she’s heard stories from traders who used to work on Tenno Railjacks, but almost nobody, who isn’t employed by the Tenno as a whole, has ever seen the inside of the orbiter. It’s also only the 2^nd time she’s been in space where she could see what was happening. Having seen enough of the blank surfaces, she turns to the window and plasters her face against it, trying to see as much as she can.

 

As the landing craft starts to turn away from the orbiter she reluctantly turns away from the window to face the entrance to the craft. As she does, the warframe standing statue still by one of the flat surfaces makes her jump as she’d forgotten it was there. After the ramp has lowered, and the warframe still hasn’t moved, she gingerly walks down the ramp into the orbiter proper. There, she’s greeted with the same featureless décor.

 

As she’s wondering where she should go, a woman she’d recognise anywhere, from the holovids that are still doing the rounds, comes from deeper in the ship.

Margulis smiles at the girl, “Hello Neewa, I’m Margulis.”

“Hello. Um, they said that you wanted to have a look at me?”

Margulis crouches down, “I do indeed child, as I maybe able to help where The Lotus couldn’t.”

Neewa steps backwards sharply, “No, don’t touch me! I don’t want to infect you.”

Margulis laughs, “Child, you need not fear for my health. I am an Orokin, one of two that are still alive and uncorrupted by the years that passed since the war.”

Neewa nods, but doesn’t step forward again, “Um, what do you need me to do? And I’d rather die young than give up the immunity that I give my colony.”

Margulis nods gravely, “Indeed, that’s what I was told you had chosen. Before I went to sleep, I would have done whatever was best for you, regardless of your desires. Fortunately, I have a mot… Tenno who is teaching me their way as well as the ways of the current era. I promise you that you will leave with your immunity intact. I just hope to be able to help you the same way I helped the children who became the Tenno. Now, if you want me to see what I can do, follow me. Otherwise, Ordis will take you back to your colony.”

 

Neewa looks at Margulis’ retreating back, and then back at the lander. Then up, through the window in the ceiling, at the Railjack tethered to the Orbiter. Making up her mind, she runs after Margulis, “Can we look around the ship while I’m here?”

Margulis laughs, “Certainly, you remind me of Lotho, one of the children from the Ten Zero. Come on, let’s get your investigation out the way.”

After they’ve passed another featureless room, that’s filled with plushies, Neewa asks, “Where’s all the displays? As I can’t see how anyone could navigate in here.”

“They’re all virtual, I’ll make you a pair of glasses once we get to my lab.”

“Oh, ok.”

“Speaking of which, here we are.” Margulis leads Neewa into a featureless grey room.

Neewa looks around, “Uh, really?”

Margulis nods, and holds out her hand as she forms a set of glasses that can see the virtual interfaces, “Really. Put these on and you’ll see.”

Neewa gapes at the glasses that are handed to her, looking between them and the space they came from. Reverently, she puts them on, and gasps as the previously grey room becomes well decorated, and covered in different displays.

 

While Neewa looks around the room, Margulis raises a table in the middle of the room, “Neewa, would you be able to jump on this table for me please?” Once Neewa is sitting down, Margulis smiles at her, “Great, now lie back.”

Margulis taps at the table a couple of times, before throwing her hand up in disgust, “Well that’s the problem then.” Stabbing a finger at a floating display, she continues, “See you’re not actually immune to the infestation, you’re compatible with it. That blood sample you shared has a very cleverly engineered virus in it that modifies the cells in your body here, here and here. A side effect of this, is that it kills off your own immune system.”

Neewa groans, “We know. The Lotus said as much before.”

“Well, what she didn’t know is that I can just do this and print you out an artificial immune system.”

 

Margulis stabs a virtual button and Neewa panics as she loses feeling in her body and is unable to move. A moment later, she stares wide eyed as her ribcage opens like a demented flower. At the same time, Margulis lifts a small golden sausage off of the corner of the table, where it just formed, and places it into a cavity in her chest beside her heart. Once it’s fitted, Neewa’s chest closes as easily as it opened, until it’s as though it never happened.

 

Smiling down at Neewa, Margulis, “There we go, that will monitor your own immune system for a while, then start to produce complementary antibodies and t-cells. It should also handle the normal bio-signalling for inflammation, fever, and the other methods your body uses to fight off infections. If you have any trouble with your immunity to the infestation, do let me know and I’ll tweak the device.”

Neewa, who has been patting her chest with wild eyes, mumbles, “Um, thanks?”

“Well, what are you waiting for. We’re done, you can go and explore the ship now.”

 

Neewa scrambles off the table and flees the room.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Taylor, let me go back to the orbiter please?”

Taylor shakes her head as she guns down another wave of infested, “No, and you know why.”

“But it’s been days, it wasn’t that bad.”

“Margulis, we had to give Neewa implants just to deal with the trauma you caused. That means that someone needs to teach her how to use those implants. All because you didn’t think to anesthetise her.”

“But I’ve never had to do that before.”

“And that’s why you are spending a week down here, with me, helping the colony harvest the materials they sell while Natah is teaching her how to use her implants.”

Margulis throws her glaive at an Ancient Healer that’s supporting the front line, “But… but…”

“No buts, it’s something you should have been doing as standard practice. Unless you absolutely need them awake, like when you’re modifying or installing implants. At that point, you should tell them what you’re going to do and why.”

“I never had any other complaints.”

“Margulis, how many people did you work with who didn’t have implants, and also had the authority to complain?”

Margulis stops for a precious few seconds while she thinks, only to have her back taken out by a juggernaut. Once Taylor has revived her, she responds, “Uh, one?”

Taylor laughs, “Let me guess, Neewa?”

“Um, yes.”

“Remember, prevention is better than cure. How much time will be spent rectifying the trauma you caused by not spending a few seconds knocking Neewa out?”

“Um, probably a year, maybe. Over her lifetime.”

“And that’s why you are going to be banned from any research every time one of us has to come back here to look after her implants, and train her in their usage.”

“But that’s not fair.”

“Neither’s what happened to Neewa, or what Natah’s having to do to teach her, or what will need to be done in the future. But this way you will remember it, and maybe, just maybe, think about how you can prevent a similar thing from happening again in the future.”

Margulis grouches, “Yes Mum.” As she resumes shooting at the infested, while the hunters and gatherers in the background are able to harvest far faster than they could when they need to be aware of the wildlife around them.

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Side Story - Sentient Effect - Chapter 1 – The perils of forgetting to account for drift – part 1

 

Taylor, Anet, Margulis and Pemmy, well, not Pemmy as Pemmy isn’t smart enough to understand, all watch in dismay as the orbiter slowly drifts apart in front of the lander. A little further away, the two halves of their railjack also slowly drift apart. None of them can miss the plushies slowly floating out of the nest room either.

Taylor sighs, “Ordis, what just happened?”

“Ordis is not entirely sure… Warning, sensors are reading a hyper velocity projectile coming towards… Operators, Ordis believes he knows what just happened. There is a receding light shadow from what appears to be a projectile travelling at speeds exceeding the speed of light.”

Margulis has to be held back by Anet and Taylor as she tries to reach a console, “Ordis, that’s impossible, nothing can exceed the speed of light.”

Anet taps her daughter on the chassis, “Margulis, Ordis doesn’t have anywhere else to go!”

Taylor asks, “Ordis, any ideas where that thing came from?”

“Ordis thinks the Operator would know more than Ordis does at the moment.”

Taylor sighs, “Right, faster than light. Let me know if anything shows up on your scans, and depressurise the lander, I’m going to go and rescue my plushies. Come on Pemmy, let’s see what we can salvage.”

Margulis finally stops trying to reach a console, “Ordis, where are we?”

“My systems indicate that we are approximately half way between the orbits of Pluto and Neptune.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 A few hours later, a long, narrow, ship appears out of nowhere that bears no resemblance to any of the factions that the three of them are used to.

Carrying a plushie and a blue glass pyramid, Taylor flies out of the wreckage and over to the ship. Opening a call to the lander, Taylor says, “Oh, hey, they speak English here, or at least they use English letters. The ship’s called Normandy.”

Margulis says, “Can you see why it feels like there’s negative mass there?”

“No clue, but it looks like someone’s opening the door and I’m working on their communications. I’m just heading around to the airlock.”

Anet shakes her head, “Talyor, be careful you’ve got Taylor there, and I know you want her to meet your dad.”

Taylor shakes her head as she pulls herself into her human shape, “Yeah, yeah, I’ll be careful.”

As she makes her way around to the airlock, she spots a window and waves to the people staring at her from inside. At the airlock is a human, wearing some sort of basic propulsion frame, tethering themselves to the outside of the ship. Slowly they turn around to face Taylor, who waves cheerfully, before they check their oxygen supply.

While they’re doing that, Taylor floats into the airlock next to them and touches the wall to close the airlock. As she does, she absently leaves part of herself behind to learn what she can about their computer systems.

BANG! Taylor looks down at the remains of her plushie and then up at the human in a space suit, at the same time her systems reconfigure her shields to convert piercing kinetic energy to electricity for her systems.

“What did you do that for? That was Anet’s plushie!”

As the person in front of her takes a couple more shots, Anet asks, “Taylor, what’s going on?”

“I’m being shot at, and the first shot went through your condrac plushie.”

Anet begins to laughs, “Taylor have you tried speaking English? Oh, and my original plushie is in digital storage.”

Taylor drops the plushie and puts her head in her now free hand, “I’m an idiot, no wait. I’m in a vacuum and we haven’t… Really? Their communications aren’t using any cyphers whatsoever? #*!%!”

Taylor connects to the humans communications system and drags her English language out of the back of her memory, “Good morning, I hope you don’t mind me dropping by for a cup of milk…”

The human opposite her freezes before pointing their gun towards the ceiling, “What?”

“Don’t mind me, I’m just trying to remember my word book as I haven’t used it in over 1,000 years.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Jane Shepherd looks at the thing wearing the body of a human in alarm, changing channels on her comm, she says, “Joker, get command on the line we’ve got a first contact scenario.”

Before Joker can say anything the thing says, “What? No, I’m not an alien, I’m human. Well I was until a few months ago anyway… At least I think I was, as I still had 28 chromosomes but do implants stop you being human… Oh, hey… Jane Shepherd isn’t it. You have implants, have you stopped being human?”

Jane switches over to an encrypted channel, “Miranda get them out of our comms.”

The thing shrugs, “If you’re not going to put in even basic encryption, don’t expect to keep anyone out. Oh, and the airlock now has pressure.”

Miranda replies, “This is encrypted... I’ve generated 257 new keys, and they're broken as quickly as they're used.”

The thing responds, “Wait, those aren't just fancy math tests? Margulis, have you ever heard of doing encryption with prime numbers?”

“No I haven't, I'm a bit busy trying to save the digital storage here.”

Jane pulls her helmet off and leans heavily against the wall, “Just my luck, there’s more than one of them.”

A third voice comes over the comm, “Taylor, don’t you think you should introduce yourself?”

Somehow, the thing in front of her manages to blush as it says, “Oops, sorry about that. I’m Taylor Hebert, originally from Earth Bet, but most recently from the Origin System. If it helps, I was born human, I just had a slight accident”

Jane stares at the hand that Taylor is holding out. Coming to a decision, she grabs the hand, “#*!% it, I’m Jane Shepherd. Pleased to meet you. You wouldn’t happen to have seen anything attacking a shuttle that was passing through here a few hours ago?”

Taylor shakes her head, “Sorry, no. But it was probably the same thing that destroyed our ships. We transited from the void, and bam, we were hit by a projectile going faster than light.”

Jane blinks twice, “Joker, calculate the exact vector the shuttle would have been taking.”

EDI’s voice comes back in less than a second, “Calculations say that it is possible that this was a collision rather than an attack. There was a 0.0000003 second window between the Mass Relay activating and the shuttle leaving the solar system plus or minus 500 nano seconds.”

Taylor blinks, “Wait, that’s a big error window. Let me see those calculations… Mercury’s mines, how crude is this computing hardware. No wonder it’s so bad… right I see. We didn’t see the incoming light from the transit for 1925.436231984332 seconds after the collision which would put their relative locations at that, giving us a 0.21 arc second deviation…” Taylor continues to mumble for a couple of minutes before saying, “Margulis, could you check my math, to make sure I’ve correctly accounted for everything.”

Jane shouts, “Power down the ship, don’t let it get into our computers.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Miranda comes running to the airlock.

As Taylor glances over at the aristocratic looking woman with long black hair she calls out, “Comms are completely compro… oh… I also couldn’t shut the ship down.”

Taylor waves, “Hi, I’m Taylor. Oh, and Margulis is just coming to the ship with Pemmy. Something about impossible numbers in your calculations. So you may want to leave the airlock.”

This is when she notices the trio of marines pointing their rifles at her, one arm turns briefly into a tentacle to snatch one of the guns, “Oh, those are interesting, where’s the smart matter? And what’s the deal with this impossible element?”

At the same time, there’s the loud retort of automatic gunfire unloading into Taylor until the cartridges turn red hot and automatically eject. Something that she just ignores, as she’s already adapted to it after Jane tried to shoot her.

Jane shouts “Weapons down! Weapons down! She is currently non-hostile and we don’t want her to become hostile.”

Jane’s eyes widen comically as another thing comes through the wall behind the marines along with a floating pillar around as tall as a human, and maybe 2m in diameter.

That’s when things go from sideways to surreal and all the guns in the area spontaneously dismantle themselves, with their components just floating in the air. The tiny spheres of eezo that provide the mass effect field needed to fire the weapons dance in front of the newcomer.

Taylor huffs as she starts to reform the floating weapon components into 3 Fulmin, the signature weapon of Wisp, and one Plinx, a corpus pistol, “Margulis, what have we said about not acting on your impulses. Sorry about that, these weapons don’t need any ammo as they run entirely off of electricity.”

Jane dumbly nods as she takes the weird looking pistol, “Um, thanks. Would you be able to give us our ship back?”

Taylor looks up, “Um, what? Oh… Sort of no? Taking over technology is a natural byproduct of us just being here. But I can certainly stop paying attention to it. Um, would you mind taking us to the Kuniper Belt so we can make a new Pemmy. That way we can let Margulis have fun building a dry dock and new base while Anet and I come and help you as best as we can as an apology for all this.”

Margulis looks up, “You mean that Taylor? You’ll let me build a new research centre? Can I keep these element samples too please?”

Taylor sighs, “Margulis, when did you learn English?”

“Huh? Just now. They have translation programs built in to their computers, so it was trivial to just copy them to my implants and add Orokin to them.”

Taylor sighs, “Jane Shepherd, meet Margulis, my somewhat daughter and one of my partners. She’s also the last Orokin Archemedian and the most intelligent person you’ll ever meet. She also has the attention span of a mayfly.”

Margulis looks up, “I’m not that bad.”

Taylor laughs “Margulis, how’s the planning for the in-place upgrade of this ship going, and how many new projects have you started since you dismantled the guns?”

“Shut up! I’m only 40% through that plan, as I need to really understand this new element. I don’t yet understand how it allows for negative mass without destroying everything.”

“And how many new projects?”

Margulis mumbles, “17, but only because I’m currently trying to get into the scientific journals to see the state of the sciences here. I predict another 135 projects arising from that information, including a dedicated toy to produce this element.”

“What about the orbiter?”

Margulis looks up, “Hmm, that’s interesting… Oh, what? The orbiter? My lab’s on independent power now, and I left it building a new Pemmy, that should be done in the next hour and Ordis can then direct the most urgent repairs so we can get the ship into the drydock.”

From the helm, Joker calls, “Captain, the ship is moving without me doing anything.”

Taylor snaps at Margulis, “Margulis, stop that!”

“But!”

“This is not your ship, and they’re not enemies. You’re not our enemies are you?”

Jane shakes her head and raises her free hand, “No, no, we’re not enemies. Um, are you AI?”

Taylor shakes her head, “We’re synthetic, rather than biological, life forms. Ordis, Cy, and Taylor here,” she lifts the blue pyramid, “are all cephalons. That means they used to be organic until the Orokin turned them into cephalons, and now they’re digital intelligences.”

Jane swallows hard, “Uh, Joker, set course for the nearest large object in the kuniper belt. Everyone else back to work. Miranda, get the others and meet me in the ready room with Taylor.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 As Taylor walks into the briefing room, she stops to look at the large wooden table, with a central holographic projector, in the cramped room. With a shrug, she activates the OmniMat built into Pemmy and replaces it with an Orokin era projector.

Cocking her head to one side, she sends a query to Margulis for the specifications of a mini synthesis simulacrum. Within milliseconds, Margulis has sent back the design, plus the designs for chairs that will allow non-orokin to use it.

With a minor thought, she dissolves the back wall of the room for energy and uses it to build a small void reactor and start it. Now having enough energy to work with, she first builds out the computing hardware needed to run the system, and a dock to put Cephalon Taylor on, before connecting the system to the ships computer network and starting on the chairs. As an afterthought, she locates the core for the ship’s AI and points Margulis at it for upgrading, given the vastly more capable computer that Cephalon Taylor is going to have.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Jane holds her brittle smile as she guides the human looking alien to the briefing room behind the CiC.

“Taylor wasn’t it? Would you wait in there, I just need to get something from my quarters and I’ll be back.”

Taylor doesn’t even seem to acknowledge her as Jane makes her way to the lift up to her cabin. Once inside, she makes her way over to her personal comm and inputs her codes for the citadel council.

A few seconds later, the salarian councillor, Valern, appears in the view screen, “Spectre, you are a long way from the Terminus System.”

Jane nods, “I am, I’m in Sol on Alliance business. However, Council business dropped in my lap.”

“Go ahead.”

“We are currently experiencing a first contact scenario with a highly advanced species that seem to be extra-galactic.”

Valern cocks his head, “What makes you think they’re extra-galactic?”

Jane laughs dryly, “They had no idea what eezo was until they came aboard.”

Valern looks down, “I see, I will have some diplomats sent out soon. Will you be in position long?”

Jane shakes her head, “I don’t know. What I do know is that they took over the Normandy with no apparent effort. They are able to shrug off our weapons, and they have the ability to reform matter out of hand.” Jane holds up her plinx, “This used to be an M-3 Predator. Now it’s whatever this is.”

“This is an order then, delay your departure from Sol for as long as you can. I will contact you again once I’ve convened the council.”

Jane nods, “Understood.”

With that, the screen goes blank and Jane makes her way back down to the CiC.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Back at the cockpit, Margulis mutters, “Damn it, I wish I was in my research lab, then I could look at the subatomic make up of… Damn it Anet! Why didn’t you make us train on the subatomic level…”

EDI turns her attention to Joker in the pilot seat, “Pilot Moreau, is it possible to look at subatomic structures? My records indicate that it is not.”

Joker looks back as he’s carefully throttling the eezo drive to allow the Normandy to reach the kuiper belt in reasonable time. “So far as I know, they still have to smash things together to see the bits and pieces that make up atoms. Something about quantum uncertainty or something.”

Absently, Margulis says, “The universe is holographic, so you can just look deeper and deeper the higher the frequency you look in. That’s interesting, I wonder how they managed that. Oh, EDI, this might itch a little.”

[(XBOX)DarkPhoenixRise]

Zariman – part 1

 

“Anet, Margulis, what are we looking at?”

Margulis looks up from the Grineer computer she’s working on, “A pile of crap that offends every iota of engineering and research training I’ve ever had.”

Anet laughs, “Tell us what you really think.”

Margulis growls, “Do you want to do this? I mean, they don’t even have the decency to include implant access to the computers. Everything has to be done through these terminals. Not even the Corpus have fallen that far. Then whoever designed the system seems to have never heard of an organisation tree, or any sort of file structure.”

Anet laughs again, from her own computer, that she’s leaning against, “Margulis, have you forgotten that you’re not Orokin anymore?”

“No, I can hardly forget now can I.” She holds up a hand and allows it to take on a less human appearance for a moment.

Taylor shakes her head and goes back to guarding the door, meanwhile Anet giggles, “Then why are you trying to access the computer like an Orokin?”

Margulis huffs, “I’m not, didn’t I just explain that it doesn’t have any systems for interacting with implants?”

“Daughter, you are a Sentient, not an Orokin. Why do you persist in ignoring that part of yourself?”

Margulis slams her fist on the keyboard, “I’m not ignoring that part of…” She trails off as she looks down at the keyboard, “Oh, I am aren’t I. But…”

Anet walks over and puts her hand on Margulis’ shoulder, before initiating a join, much like a parental hug. In the join she sends over the memories of learning the Orokin way, and their hope that Margulis would have been doing the same thing for the Sentient way of being. Along with that she can’t help sending a sense of exasperation with Taylor for not learning more about being a Sentient too. As they separate, Margulis looks down at her hands and deliberately lets go of the form she’s so used to. As she does, her body expands out until it’s finally the full size it’s supposed to be. Connecting to her mother wirelessly, she regards the computer, “This isn’t all you meant is it.”

What she gets back is an image of herself in the gardens of the Dojo learning how to terraform. With a sigh, she turns back to the computer and invades it in seconds, and only a few moments later she’s located all of the interesting information and downloaded it. It will require further perusal later, but it looks like they have the location of the Zariman anyway.

 

As the sound of an alarm goes off, Ordis connects to them all, “This has become an extermination mission. Find everyone that saw you enter the secure area and eliminate them.”

All three of them share a glance before Margulis forces herself down into her humanoid form, and picks up her weapon.

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 “Daughter, daughter, you must…”

With a mental flick, Anet turns off the incoming call as she turns her attention back to the gardens with Taylor and Margulis, “Taylor, you need to consider what happens to your plants and animals once they die, otherwise your eco system will fail almost immediately. Margulis, while a world of bacteria and fungi is very stable, you need to include insects, mammals, and reptiles in order to fill your brief. Remember your biology and geology lessons.”

Hunhow’s face briefly appears in a message window again, “Daughter, we need to…”

Taylor loses control of her human form as she tries to balance her garden so that it only needs a single energy input to remain stable, “Gah! This is harder than it looks.”

Anet briefly joins with Taylor to send a sense of approval and appreciation before turning her attention back to Margulis, “Margulis, while this is very utilitarian, where’s the wonder and beauty? Where’s the…”

Margulis sweeps her hand over the garden, “Can you not see it? There’s 300,000 strains of fungus and bacteria, all working together in a perfect dance, growing, living, dying, and being eaten. Each one producing something that the others require.”

Anet sighs before she uses the systems to create a lump of limestone, and throwing it randomly into the garden, “Where’s the resiliency.”

Margulis watches aghast as the limestone causes some of her carefully crafted bacterial to reproduce out of control in the accelerated environment, causing a cascade throughout the system that ultimately causes mutations, and then wipes out the underlying bacteria that use heat and water to provide the basic chemicals needed for the next layer in the ecosystem, “But, that wasn’t supposed to happen.”

Anet touches her daughter and sends a sense of reassurance, “Margulis, you focus too much on the details and elegance that you don’t leave yourself space to consider external factors.” She waves a manipulator over the garden, “Life doesn’t work like that. Life adapts, responds, and fills niches. Your creations should reflect that. They should be adaptable and able to grow to fill a niche if it's available.”

 

Ordis opens a communication channel with all three of them, “Operators, we have just finished calculating the coordinates of the Zariman Ten Zero. A new mission has been added to Navigation.”

As Ordis ends the call, Hunhow opens a call to Anet, “Praghasa.”

Anet freezes as she’s about to cancel the call once more, “What about her?”

“Your brother has reactivated her with Ballas. My daughter, you must stop them.”

“Erra’s dead, my Tenno killed him in the old war.”

“Grievously injured, yes. Killed, not quite. The traitor, Ballas, unsealed his tomb.”

“Why haven’t you stopped my brother?”

Hunhow hesitates before responding, “Erra, listens to me about as much as you do. Especially now.”

“Then, why do you think he’ll listen to me?”

“I don’t, however you are still your mother’s successor. Like you, she can call our people out of hiding. I would rather you were the one to make the call, than the traitor, Ballas.”

Margulis interrupts her with a snarl, “Did you say Ballas?”

Anet cocks her head to one side in thought, a habit she picked up from Taylor. Coming to a decision, she connects to an EmMat and creates a communications node to transfer the call to, “Margulis, meet Hunhow, my father. Father, meet my daughter Margulis, and you already know Taylor. Apparently, my, not nearly as deceased as he should be, brother has activated her with Ballas.”

Margulis snarls as best as she can in her sentient body, “Where is that filthy spawn of a kubrow and yogwun? He has some nerve sealing me into Anet, .”

 

Hunhow stays silent for a while as he processes the new information, “Daughter…”

Anet interrupts with a growl, “I am not your daughter, not now, and never again. I am Anet, or The Lotus to you.”

 

Taylor sighs, “Let’s ignore the whole genetic donor thing for the moment. What’s going on that requires our direct involvement?”

Anet growls, “Taylor, you know what…”

Taylor raises a manipulator, “Anet, I know, but at the moment he’s a client, so we are going to treat him as a client. Now, Hunhow, what were you saying.”

 

Hunhow rumbles, “Daughter…”

Taylor interrupts, “Uh uh, that goes for you too. Unless you want to be shunted to the Lotus Cephalons you will stop with the genetic donor crap until the call is over.”

“…Praghasa, our mother, has been reactivated by Erra and Ballas, they are going to use her to call the sentient’s out of hiding. The only other sentient that could do that is my…” He changes tack as Taylor raises a manipulator, “Natah. You must stop them, or call the other sentients yourself.”

Margulis shakes her head, “We can’t be involved in this. Ballas changed Anet in some way to allow me to take over her systems. But we don’t know if that’s the only thing he added. All three of us could be taken over by him if we got anywhere close, and unless we let it happen I couldn’t tell you what part of our systems are needed to allow him to do that.”

Taylor nods, “Anet, if one of us were to do this call thing, would it give away our location?”

Anet nods, “Every Sentient in the solar system, including my… including Hunhow would know precisely where we are.”

Taylor nods, “Which include Ballas and Erra.”

Margulis calls out, “Ordis, transfer Hunhow to the Lotus.”

At the same time Hunhow calls, “Natah, you must call them, they are your peo…”

 

A moment later, Taylor forms a hand so she can snap her fingers, “Ordis, have you located the Warframe that Alad V stole from me yet?”

“Operator Ordis notified you of that new mission three days ago.”

Taylor forms a head and another three hands so she can facepalm properly, “Right… Anet, would you mind terribly if I got my Titania back, and then we head to the Zariman to rescue me?”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Taylor, Anet, and Margulis all stop to stare as Cy brings the Railjack out of the void near to the recovered coordinates. In front of them, the ships scanners are projecting holographic markers for a fleet of Grineer ships. If that was all, then the three of them would have just taken their positions to wipe the fleet out.

Instead, there’s a shimmering white crack in space behind the fleet, and it is getting bigger and bigger as it blots out the stars. As they watch, it cracks open, revealing a dark void that seems to hungrily consume most of the waiting fleet before a silvery grey ship slowly starts to emerge from inside the void.

 

The docking port alone looks as though it would be large enough for even a Grineer Galleon to dock nose first, even if that’s all that would fit. As more and more of the disc shaped ship pokes through to real space, the sheer size of the 44km diameter ship becomes apparent.

 

As they watch, the ship seems to get caught in the rift just as it reaches its widest point.

 

Suddenly Margulis gasps, “What’s that, on the edge of the rift?”

 

As the other two look, they can all see the faint images of another land, just beyond the rift.

 

Grimly, Taylor says, “Cy, plot a course to the docking bay. We need to get in there. Once we’ve landed, get back to the Orbiter and start preparing a new set of solar rails. We have a ship to clear out.”

Margulis shakes her head, “What about Ballas?”

Taylor looks at her, “Be honest, how long do you think it will take before he knows about this? Once he does, he’s going to want to take it for himself. Honestly, I’m surprised that we’ve not seen any of the Orokin towers being returned to real space.”

Cy interrupts, “Captain, the Lotus Cephalons have been stepping up their monitoring of void incursions by any forces, and have been setting high priority missions to clear them out. Ballas would need to go to a tower personally in order to take one over. Every ships Cephalon has additionally been instructed to send new fallback coordinates to each of the tower Cephalons once their operators have completed their missions. We estimate that the entire fleet, bar two towers, will be inaccessible to the other factions within the next 28 days.”

Taylor nods, “So they’ll be back to sending out scouting missions and collating nav-coordinates again.”

“Affirmative. Course plotted.”

═══════ ೋღ ֍ ღೋ ═══════

 Nearly 6 hours later, two sentients, three Warframes, and Pemmy (aka PemMat mk 3 #3), Margulis’ portable research lab, all land on a small pad inside a massive hanger that looks like it doubles as a concourse.

 

Once they touch down Taylor transfers out of her wisp. “I’ve got nothing on my implants, what about you two?”

Anet shakes her head, “There are communications, but they’re not using the same channels as the towers.”

Margulis nods, “That tracks, this was supposed to be a colony ship after all. I’ve got 33…” Margulis humphs as Taylor stares at her, “ok, Pemmy checking through all the variations of civilian and military channels that I had access to. It… They’re also looking for any patterns in the emissions that could hint at unknown channels.”

Taylor nods, “Anet, anything on the Grineer coms?”

Anet laughs, “Taylor, there’s always stuff on Grineer coms, but they don’t keep a data network going like the Corpus do. I’m monitoring it for anything interesting. Now what’s going on with that song I can hear but not sense.”

Margulis nods, “Whatever it is, it’s playing havoc with Tenno and Orokin void based comms.”

Taylor nods, “Right, I’ll take point with my Wisp while the two of you bring up the rear and guard Pemmy and the Warframes. Remember, we’re on our own here and until we find a secure living space we won’t be able to set up transference pods for either of us.”

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 As they’re carefully making their way through the seemingly deserted ship, Taylor walks through a barely visible shimmer of light and leaves her Warframe behind.

She takes two steps through the door she was about to walk through before she stops and looks back, “What the hell?”

On the other side of the door, Margulis has already put her Warframe down, and is looking at the barrier in interest, “Fascinating, this seems to be disrupting the transference energies that we use to join with the Warframes. I wonder if this developed naturally, or was manufactured as it’s a masterful use of the void.”

Taylor shakes her head, “Fine, whatever. I’m going to scout ahead to make sure it’s not an ambush, Anet watch our backs, Margulis find out how to disable this.”

Shifting sideways in physics, Taylor lifts off the ground and puts herself slightly out of phase with the physical universe the same way she did when she made the bet with Anet so many months ago. As she does so, she shivers slightly as the ship around her seems to become less solid, and she’s able to easily perceive the things outside the ship that were previously been blocked.

It's only because of this state that she avoids walking around a corner into view of some sort of void beast that is barely visible to her eyes, and invisible to the rest of her sensors.

Lowering herself to the floor, Taylor returns to her natural phase, and frowns when the creature ahead still doesn’t show up on her other senses properly.

Off to one side, a voice hisses, “This way, over here!”

Taylor looks towards the voice, and blanks momentarily when she sees a young human woman in a black leather outfit kneeling in an access tunnel. Quickly, she flies over to the woman, and into the tunnel.

“Come on, follow me, there’s a safe place we can talk.”

Taylor shakes her head, “Not without my friends, they’re just back there.”

The woman stares at Taylor disbelievingly, “Are you serious?”

Taylor nods, “There are three of us, we’re here to gain a foothold against the Grineer.”

The woman shakes her head, “The Grineer aren’t the problem, I’ll explain later. Where exactly are your friends?”

Taylor tries to connect to Pemmy to create a map, only for the connection to fail. Sharpening a finger, she scratches a ‘crude’ map into the wall. Then stares at it in consternation as she realises that it’s actually only off by a fraction of a millimetre. “They’re here, just outside the weird barrier that’s interfering with my communications.”

The woman nods, “I can get us there, follow me.”

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 After a circuitous route through some maintenance tunnels, and backtracking along some main corridors, the woman finally leads the group into a large central elevator.

As the elevator goes down into the ship, Taylor looks out into the central maintenance shaft wistfully, “I remember standing in one of these just after I arrived on the Zariman. Kay used to bring Rell here to watch the shuttles and drones moving around inside the shaft with supplies. We’d sit and chat behind the console there while Rell walked around the viewing window. We were considered a little odd for doing that, as each dorm level was its own town.”

The woman looks at Taylor in surprise, “You’re passenger N? We all heard of you, as what you did was supposed to be impossible.”

Taylor turns round, “Who’s we?”

The woman folds her arms defensively, “The crew. I’m Hombask, I was going to be in charge of the homesteading when we reached Tau.”

Taylor nods, “I remember you, you tried to protect us. But you died.”

Hombask looks down, “Yeah, not that it matters in this forsaken place. I’ll let Quinn or Yonta explain it once we reach safety.”

Margulis frowns, “Yonta? Archimedean Yonta?”

Hombask nods, “Yes, you know her?”

Margulis growls, “Of her, and I have some choice words for what she did.”

Hombask shakes her head, “Whatever you think she did, she probably didn’t do. Not in the way you’re thinking anyway.”

In order to divert the conversation, Anet quietly asks, “Why is Taylor passenger N?”

Hombask laughs, “Because that’s what her passenger number was. She had another passenger number too, but anyone in the crew could see the passenger manifest, and when every passenger joined the ship. In the first days after the accident we were all using it regularly to find points of unrest or distress. It didn’t help that we were running low on food because the Orokin in charge wouldn’t stop the mission ‘just because the agricultural biomes failed’.”

Margulis frowns, “That didn’t make it into any of the reports I received.”

The large door behind them slides open, bringing a halt to the discussions as Taylor walks out into onto a veranda that has been partially overtaken by plants, “This wasn’t our home.”

Hombask shakes her head, “It isn’t, no. Those areas aren’t safe. The Grineer can’t come down here, and the Angels… Come on Quinn’s waiting for us.”

As they walk along the veranda, Taylor looks over the edge to see water instead of the plaza she was expecting, “Water?”

Hombask nods, “The Orokin in charge ordered these areas flooded when the riots started, and the first adults started falling to void sickness. Every dorm level we’ve looked at is the same when accessed by this elevator.”

Margulis looks out of the long windows that overlook the plaza below, “Were these the crew quarters then?”

Hombask nods, “They were.” She then walks through a door on the opposite side of the veranda to the railing.

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As Anet and Taylor walk into a sleeping area, Margulis takes one look at one of the people inside, and charges forward to land a right hook right around their face.

“How could you! How could you countenance the mission and the experiments they were running?”

The women she just slugged, holds her cheek, “I didn’t have a choice, and I thought I could limit the damage. Do you have any idea how many times I wished I was the one that had chosen to walk away from my life’s work? That I’d defied the Seven? Oh, how I wish I was the me that did that. Maybe then the whole ship wouldn’t have been lost, maybe then I’d have survived.”

Taylor laughs, “Not likely, out of all the Orokin, there’s only the Entrati family, Ballas, and Margulis here still alive. But backing up a bit, what do you mean you’d have survived?”

One of the two men in the room speaks up, “That would probably be my cue. I’m Quinn, and you’re Taylor Hebert. It is to my great regret that I am the person who glassed you when you arrived on board. We believed you to be a stowaway, and that was to be your punishment. My superiors took you away when you survived.”

Taylor nods, “Thank you for admitting that, it’s part of why we’re here. The Grineer have found the genetic samples taken from my arrival, and we came to rescue the Cephalon created from me.”

Quinn nods, “Maybe we can help each other then. The Grineer restarted the reliquary drives and woke the angels. We also have a void cascade affecting the entire ship. Then there’s ‘That’, we can feel it, trying to push past the ship into the rest of the solar system.”

Anet shakes her head, “What are Angels?”

Grimly, Quinn says, “They are manifestations of the void, and what we become if we succumb to the song. Kira was the angel that you met before Hombask. Hombask left to try and persuade her to hold on and not give in.”

Taylor grumbles, “You still haven’t answered the question, what do you mean you’d have survived.”

Quinn looks at the woman, “Yonta?”

Yonta shakes her head, “So far as I can tell, we’re conceptual embodiments. Imprints of people who died without going insane from void exposure. The sum of our possibilities.”

Taylor puts her head in her hands, “Great, Eternalism, I hated that subject.”

Anet shakes her head, “I feel like we are getting off track here. Starting with the basics, are the computer systems still working here? Are there any maps of the ship? How do we get to the places we need to go?”

Quinn looks down, “Cephlon Melica is still around, we managed to repair her enough to work. But she’s… different. She’d be the best person to ask about the computer systems, but expect them to be spotty as the void… It plays havoc with the inside of the ship… It…”

Yonta interrupts, “The memories of all those on board while the ship was waiting for rescue, they shape the inside of the ship. As it was mostly children that didn’t succumb to void exposure, many of the areas that can be accessed change their layouts and have a childlike relationship to each other. Sometimes, getting to the drives is as simple as taking the engineering elevator to the right level and walking down a few corridors. Other times you’ll need to go through the Lunaro stadium, and the athletics track, in order to get close. I would imagine the same is true for the labs.”

Margulis nods, “Is this area safe?”

Yonta glances nervously at a door, “It’s safe from threats inside the ship. But there ‘That’, you should be fine, but for us… Many of us chose to explore ‘That’ rather than give in to the song, we don’t know what happened to them.”

Margulis nods, “I’m going to create a Reservoir outside, that should allow those that follow the safety net they need, if they’re not already awoken.”

Taylor pokes Margulis, “You mean like you and Anet.”

Margulis grumbles, “Yes, like us. I don’t know how you do it, you make it seem so easy.”

Taylor laughs, “You could always ask Teshin to teach you, after all he taught me.”

Margulis shakes her head, “He believes we’ve abandoned the Tenno, and is leading a number of them against Ballas.”

Taylor puts her hands on her hips, “When was I going to find out about this?”

Anet smiles, “It’s in the Lotus data packets we get every day. You’d already know if you bothered to read them.”

“Right, well you get on with the Reservoir while I go and deal with this void cascade. Anet, I want you to try and get access to the computer systems and the Cephalon. If you can, see what resources we have available.”