Ex Lacrima Remnant

Track #36 – Supremacy

“…and that’s how eugenics can help your country get on the chadder side of the chart! It’s that simple!”

Muriel van Perens was intently browsing the legal compendium of New Netherlands to look up which forms of ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ were still allowed and whether she could find a way to have them all applied to Graham Zonta, possibly at the same time. Possibly forever. The cameras had quietly gone offline, moving the PV stream to a more relaxing collection of historical footage from previous vault openings, all while that deranged excuse of a man went on with his usual ramblings on the podium, in front of heads of state from more than one hundred nations, including delegates from Neon. Shooting him dead or removing him from the stands in front of so many foreign diplomats was definitely not the right choice – but was it a wrong choice either? Her gaze met with that of Captain Commander Lily. Dead in the eye. Almost as if she had resigned herself to witness that charade without being able to do anything about it. Minister van Perens could sympathize with the rhizome, at least that once.

“It’s all about genetic manipulation and gene splicing, after all. They say we play God. I say, it’s no play. We are our own God. That omnipotent sucker let our ancestors drown in his piss, just because he didn’t like the state of the world. So, well, everyone can be God, if being God means being a coward loser that always has to remind people that He exists. It’s nice to be a despot, innit? Nuke some towns, wipe the slate clean! Nah, I prefer to be a servant of science, one that uses his knowledge to bring his dreams to life.”

Capital punishment had been abolished for all crimes except mass murder. Van Perens tried to look in the appendix whether ‘mass sanity murder’ or ‘mass common sense murder’ could also be reclassified to trigger that clause, but apparently it wasn’t the case. Prime Minister Herz, on his side, was simply watching with mouth agape, incapable of thinking of a quick resolution. That bastard on the stage, he had signed a binding contract that forced him to follow the prepared written speech to the letter. Except a convenient bug in the system wiped the speech one minute before the talk. So, his contract was null and void. And Zonta had no qualms about filling the blanks himself. Fortunately, only the one thousand or so people present on the flight deck of Lagash were subjected to his ramblings. Herz could have gotten away by filing a couple dozen letters of apology, after the celebrations for the Turn ended.

“And what’s a better dream than rhizomes? Look, I know that for munchkins with brain damage and intellectual deficits like you the concept is hard to grasp… but my daughters are perfect! Deadly fighters, scarily precise, smoking hot! Why don’t you have your rhizomes? That’s because you are all a bunch of cowards! I was expecting a catgirl or two, from you clowns in the Eastcol! I have brushed off my personal collection of catgirl erotica in preparation for your announcement, including the non negligible amount of videos that I found in the device of my most successful daughter – the one standing there in the corner with the big bad black sword! Yes, she truly is into catgirl porn, you should see the things she saves on her tablet.”

Lily’s face turned to stone. Her eye motionless. Her lips sealed. Her hand shaking on the handle of her dark blade. Her breathing slow. Steady. Counting upwards. Downwards. Sideways.

“But no, so many years… and still no catgirls! Which means that you all suck. Of course, of course I had to put matters in my own hands. Leave it to Zonta to create the first artificial babes! You guys are not horny enough! Horniness is justice!”

Multiple counts of international libel. Aggravated insult of foreign chief of state. Public indecency. All very interesting charges, ones that could have at least forced him to pay a fine, but none of them were strong enough to put him on the chopping block. Minister Van Perens secretly hoped that Zonta pulled a gun and started killing foreign diplomats before her eyes. True, it would have been a PR disaster for New Netherlands, but at least the suffering would have lasted less and they could have got rid of him forever. They didn’t even need him anymore to produce new rhizomes. All of his blueprints were circulating among the scientific community and had no need to be tuned again. So, for what was worth, they could simply ‘send him on indefinite leave’, possibly at the bottom of the Gildesan Trench or in the active caldera of Mt. Auckney. Chained. Possibly, packed with dynamite too.

A low, deep noise shook the hall. The clock. The clock they used to mark the arrival of the Turn. It moved up again, only a matter of two hours before the moment came. Which also meant that Zonta’s time was over, much to the relief of Herz and his entourage. The prime minister walked to the podium, slapped his hand on Zonta’s shoulder.

“Alright, thank you Dr. Zonta for your – huh – very inspiring speech. It was a deeply moving personal take that has nothing – absolutely nothing to do with New Netherlands’ policy and just reflects the opinions of our most famous scientist – not those of the government. But in the spirit of our motto, ‘a free world for a free mankind’, we deemed important to have Dr. Zonta take center stage and – huh – expound his – huh – thought-provoking ideas to the entirety of Lagash. Now, an applause to Dr. Zonta, before we move on to the next speaker…”

Silence. Only rows of dead cold gazes. All watching the podium without saying a word. Before an asphyctic applause echoed in the hall. Maybe four, five people out of the whole audience. Clapping their hands out of pity. Or doing that to spite Prime Minister Herz. After even that cold reception ended, Herz grabbed Zonta by the collar, dragged him out of the podium, tossed him to a group of Peacekeepers, almost shouting at them.

“Load this idiot on a Corps car and drive him to some place as far from the seedship as reasonably possible. I don’t want to see his face till the end of the Turn. Use violence, if necessary. Just don’t kill him yet.”

Zonta chuckled, hugged himself in a crossed embrace.

“Oh, come on, Prime Minister! Where has your chadness gone? I’ve just told them the truth. If your stuck up friends from other nations are too sensitive to accept that, they are just cowards. And you’re no coward, right?”

Herz didn’t even reply. He simply turned around and let the soldiers handle him. Van Perens was next on the podium. He hoped that she could turn the situation in his favor. Not that she could do much worse than Zonta, at least. While walking back to his place of honor, he noticed something, though. That tall rhizome, Captain Commander Lily, was standing close to one of the big loudspeakers, fiddling with the controls. That felt unusual, even if not technically a problem. He wondered what that was supposed to entail, just for one instant. As soon as Minister Van Perens’s voice reached his ears, he immediately forgot about it and turned around to watch her ascent to the stands. His reelection campaign all hinged on the success of the Turn. He wasn’t allowed to make any more blunders.

**

“So, here’s the situation.”

Geiger spread a bunch of paper sheets and graphs on the table of the mess hall, in front of four rhizomes, three criminals, a couple paramedics and one additional Peacekeeper. His finger tapped on a list, finely printed with small characters, filled with all sorts of names and information.

“After witnessing the… extraction operation performed by prisoner LeFou on Frijderik den Malstrom, I ordered all personnel on Atropos to be subjected to the same body scan. All of them, no exceptions – me included. This required hours, but the results are clear. Of all the people aboard this station…”

He switched to the next page, to a collection of ultrasound pictures.

“…there are five who are afflicted by the same plant parasites as Malstrom. All of them are Peacekeepers that worked at the central precinct of New Babylon. Peacekeepers from other precincts, even those with a significant rhizome presence, didn’t seem to be affected. We have quarantined all of the individuals that were found hosting the… creatures. Some are being brought to the bay right now.”

Primula nodded, trying to settle her thoughts. Only their precinct. But no other. What was the difference between them? She grabbed one of the pictures. That parasite was so similar to it. In a way, it might have been the natural evolution of that. Which could also mean that… whatever created them had to be at work for at least the past two, three years. She raised her voice, tried to get the attention of all other people present.

“Station Commander Geiger… have you compared the DNA of the parasites with that of the remains of the pseudorhizome we brought from Lagash?”

“I don’t have enough resources for that, at the moment. The well-being of my soldiers has the highest priority.”

His gaze turned toward Mimi, towards those expressionless eyes, that shite-eating grin plastered all over her face – the grin of a woman who was dangerously dancing on the border between foul criminal and precious asset.

“Prisoner LeFou, could you extract the parasites from them too, like you did with Malstrom?”

Mimi played with her braids, straightened her hair a little, before flashing a smile at where she believed Geiger to be sitting.

“Depends. What’s in for me? You know, I’m probably going to be executed the moment I step back on Lagash. So, I don’t see what you can put on the table to force my hand.”

Geiger sighed. She wasn’t incorrect. His orders were to keep her alive so that she could be used as the main event of a glorious punishment show, broadcast worldwide. Prime Minister Herz was adamant on that. Yet, that’s where his experience came into play. Herz had given him precise orders, but not enough to completely chain him to one single course of action.

“On Lagash, sure. But what if I ‘accidentally’ transferred you and your fellows to Neon instead?”

“The Moon…?”

“New Netherlands has no authority on Neon. True, it’s not heaven or anything, but living there might be better than being killed, I think.”

Mimi closed her eyes, leaned her cheek on her fist, all while her other hand started drawing imaginary circles on the table.

“…Yeah, that’s true. I’ve got some connections there too, former Peacekeepers and such. Okay, I get it. It’s not a bad deal. But, before I can perform, I need that idiot over there,” her finger pointed towards a massive individual with a metal face and just one eye, one who joyfully waved his hand at the assembled people, “to fix my nanowire configuration. Malstrom didn’t burst into a soup of gore because I used everything I had to manually correct the misalignments. Doing that for five people in a row, though? Not in a million years, not for a million eas. But Dobrio there is the only person in this space graveyard with enough skills to fix at least the biggest issues with my body. So, yeah, these are my conditions. One: Let funny face open me up and patch me down. Two: promise me, him and my house plant a safe trip to Neon. Then, I’ll fuck the parasite out of your soldiers and we’re even.”

Geiger squinted his eyes at the word ‘house plant’.

“Huh, I can’t transfer ownership of Commander Primula to you, nor allow her to go to Neon. She’s still a member of…”

“I’m her house plant! Not! Primula!”

Lacrima, who till that point had remained silent, had broken that status quo, slamming her hand on the table. Her red eye was brighter than usual, her fibers were trembling, her voice too.

“I’m not sharing my nest with that opportunistic cuckoo! The circumstances that brought Primula and Mimi to exchange fluids were unusual, one of a kind, and won’t be repeated. When Mimi refers to a ‘house plant’, that’s me!”

Felce and Agave exchanged a surprised gaze, stared back at Lacrima, then at Prim, then at Lacrima again, then at Mimi, moving their eyes almost in sync, before finally landing one more time on Prim, who was sitting right between them. Felce tapped Prim’s hip with her elbow, right under the table, whispered as subtly as she could, in the hope of being heard only by her.

“Wait, wait, wait… you and Kryzalid… exchanged fluids? Like, water and lymph? Really, now?”

“It was the price I paid for Mal’s life.”

Felce gloated, tried to keep her laughter in check.

“Aaaaw, you dirty, dirty, birch! You have to tell me all the details, all of them! I’m so, so curious! And, oh, I so can’t wait for your pet to hear them too!”

Only to meet Prim’s murder gaze instead. A gaze that said more than one thousand words. On the other side of the table, Lacrima was now pushing herself against Mimi, wrapping her with her vine arm, much to the latter’s surprise. Mimi blinked once, twice, before patting Lacrima’s hair with her hand, trying to defuse the situation before it escalated further. Rhizomes were truly built different. Geiger cleared his throat, crossed his arms.

“Alright. How much time would this… Dobrio need to fix your wiring?”

“Two hours. Maybe three.”

“Then, I say we postpone it right after the Turn. But, before…”

“It’s useless.”

A voice cut through the air. A voice that had been unheard for too long. Robin. Sitting alone, far from everyone else. Watching the floor.

“Going to Neon, saving those soldiers… it’s all useless. In three hours, we are all dead. Lagash, Neon, this space station. There won’t be a safe place. We are all going to be annihilated, unless we can convince the people down there not to open the tenth vault. If the vault is opened, it’s over. End of our story… again.”

There was something akin to coldness in her voice. No traces left of emotion. A matter-of-fact tone, one that felt more fitting to a rhizome than to a man. Geiger groomed his beard, rolled his eyes.

“Oh, yeah. Sure. It’s what you said while under interrogation too, right? That you are – huh – what was that? One thousand years old?”

“I’ve just… told you the truth. But, as usual, nobody believes me.”

Robin touched her gem, the emerald encased in her forehead, let out a deep breath.

“Maybe I should…”

“Wait, wait, wait! Stop!”

Felce’s eyes widened, she almost jumped on her chair for the surprise.

“You’re a precursor?! A real precursor! As… as in the Second Loop Hypothesis? Oh, I love, I love that theory, even if the only evidence for it are the corpse found in the eighth vault and the first message on the intercon!”

Felce hopped around her chair, like an overexcited rabbit, her voice dazzling with a spark she seldom showed.

“Neither of them should have been there and yet both have been recorded in official documents of the time! But how? The obvious solution would be time travel, which is a no-go! So, the second obvious solution is…”

“It’s a simple hoax, Commander Felce. Just that.”

Geiger rested his head on his cheek, waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. To which Felce replied by shouting even louder.

“It’s not just a simple hoax, Station Commander Geiger! Even someone as skeptical as Rijkard-Isidor Kirchard had to admit that it has to either be aliens or people from a previous loop! Okay, the objections in that recent podcast by Iohann Heilinger would debunk this theory quite well at a first glance, but… but there is something he didn’t consider! Maybe, the reason why we haven’t found any traces of precursor tech goes back to…”

“Enough, please. Enough.”

Geiger crossed his hands under his chin, brushing his beard with his fingers.

“Back to the core of the issue, shall we? The parasites. It’s concerning and peculiar that all my Peacekeepers coming from the central precinct were affected by them… and all those that prisoner LeFou killed on Lagash too.”

Mimi swallowed a lump of saliva, let out a deep breath, before Kryzalid took the show again.

“They were beyond salvation. The parasite was already too developed. I could either kill them or have their parasite kill them in one year at most. I chose the first.”

“That’s not my point. My point is that all of them came from the same precinct. So, my question is simple: what does that precinct have that no other precinct has? Definitely not rhizomes, we have already excluded them. There must be a key difference we are overlooking…”

“…Graham Zonta.”

Primula’s voice. Low, almost whispering.

“Pardon?”

“Our Father. His lab. It’s part of the central precinct, right?”

Silence fell among them. Plant parasites. The greatest expert in plant technology in the known world. In the same place. A key and a lock, fitting into each other with incredible precision. The pieces of the puzzle started to fall together. Geiger growled, browsed through his documents, finding the right piece of paper.

“…this person you mentioned… he’s currently attending the celebrations for the Turn… with all the surviving Peacekeepers from the central precinct. If that’s the case…”

“There’s another possibility.”

Mimi’s voice, this time. Uncertain, yet firm.

“Captain Commander Lily. The only existing rhizome of the Commander class. She has known about the parasites for a long time. She… used them against me.”

Groans. Surprised gulps. The Peacekeeping rhizomes looked at each other, looked at Mimi again. Their stares were cold, devoid of emotions. But not Lacrima’s. If anything, her eye was burning much brighter than before. So, she interjected too, leaning on Mimi’s shoulder for a good measure.

“…I agree. Lily must be involved. Either of her own volition or under Father’s orders.”

Geiger stuttered, shook his head.

“That’s the… the chief of security herself? This is… oh damn it!”

He stood up, stumbled to the PV projector, pushed the button. The image started forming around them – a slideshow of historical footage, of previous vault openings. According the the schedule, that was the time for Zonta’s speech, but, apparently, they decided not to broadcast it. A chill travelled down Geiger’s spine. He pulled a transmitter out of his utility belt, brought to his ear.

“Zeta Seven from Station Commander Geiger. Go to my office and open a priority communication channel with Prime Minister Herz. Code red five, bypass all security protocols. If Herz isn’t available, get the highest person in charge that is. I’ll be there in a minute.”

Geiger glanced at the PV projection swallowing him and the other people in the room, like a gigantic cage. The pictures kept changing and moving, in an endless carousel of colors and shapes. He clenched his fist, turned around to face the assembled crowd of soldiers, scientists, doctors, convicts, plants.

“I’ll be back ASAP. From this moment on, our formal agreement is in effect on the ground of national security. All prisoners have clearance to move around Atropos as if they were authorized civilians. All rooms that are not cleared for civilian use, such as the rocket docking bay and the safety pod room, are still off-limits.”

He started walking to the door of the mess hall, with slow, heavy steps.

“Mr. Dobrio? Please, head to the medbay immediately and fix Ms. LeFou’s nanowires. If you need specific tools, ask the personnel. The paramedics in this room will be your witnesses.”

He turned around to the crowd once more, squinting his eyes at the rhizomes.

“All the others: Please, enjoy the Turn of the Millennium. There’s no reason to be upset. I’m sure we’ll be able to avoid the worst outcome.”