Board Thread:The Mech Bay Bar'n'Grill/@comment-24930445-20140526230330/@comment-24866242-20140601224123

Phase II

Lenits had spent a long time working towards his eventual revenge on Stinel. Everything he did in service of Jos was supposed to be working towards that goal. When Jos finally took action against Stinel, she did it without any input from Lenits. He was completely uninvolved, finding out after the fact that the focus of his hatred was gone.

He had been holding that irrational hatred for years, and when its target disappeared, Lawrence had felt the anger go with it. He couldn’t explain it, even to Lauren, who he had been spending more and more time with.

Joslynne refused to see him for days after he found out about Stinel. When eventually he was called to her office it was clear she was expecting rage and she made little effort to hide her disappointment. At first she made a show of explaining how the move against Stinel had been a long shot that had paid off far more than she had expected. It wouldn’t have been worth it to involve Lenits in such a piddling venture, she told him. Lenits had nodded his understanding.

Eventually she decided to prod him from a different direction. “Lawrence,” she walked around behind him and put her arms around his shoulders, one fingernail stroked the short stubble on his cheek and she rested her cheek against his back, “I know this is hard for you. It worries me that you’re not letting me know how you feel about this.” She wanted the reaction. She was trying to prompt it out of him, he knew. Maybe it would be easier to give it to her, but her next words dissuaded him from that. “You remember what I told you I would do if you ever lied to me?”

So he told her the truth. “I feel empty. What will I work on now?”

She let go of him and went back to her chair, looking at him across her desk. “You seem to have lost your edge, Lawrence. You’re no use to me where you are.”

The brief moment of panic on his face was small, but it made her smile, “Don’t worry. I’m not ready to throw you away so quickly. You just need to be redirected… This war in Stinel’s home has become inconvenient. I need it to end. You’ll work on that for now. Then we’ll see.”

So he began work. New Oregon was remarkably easy to manipulate, but setting the stage exactly the way Jos wanted took years. Jos, despite all of her other qualities, was an extremely patient woman. She was perfectly happy to wait as long as necessary to accomplish her goals. Lawrence worked diligently. The nobles of New Oregon were carefully manipulated and maneuvered. Eventually a leader was selected that Jos was happy with. One whose greed and lust for power she thought she could control. The houses began to align behind Philip Riordan.

Seven years after he began, Lawrence was called to another meeting. This one with Lantis Pirin.

“You’ve done well, Lawrence,” Jos told him. “Pirin will take over from here.”

“Ma’am?”

Lantis looked smug. He always did. “We received word today that the New Oregon Navy has agreed to be recalled. They are returning home. This is thanks to you, Lawrence. Philip Riordan is being crowned by the other noble houses as we speak. Of course, all is not well at home. There are still pockets of dissent. And that,” he paused, smiling, “is thanks to me.”

Lawrence nodded, understanding. Jos never kept her eggs in one basket. Lawrence would never be trusted with every aspect of an operation. Jos compartmentalized everything. She wanted the war to end, probably for the same reason she had wanted it begun in the first place. She wanted New Oregon distracted. Stinel had manipulated things so while the nobles squabbled the Navy remained uninvolved, looking out and guarding against intruders. Now they would change their focus. Some of the senior admiralty would agree to retire, a token punishment for what many would undoubtedly claim had prolonged the war rather than minimizing it. The captains promoted to replace them would be tasked with dealing with Lantis’ insurgents. Jos would be free to begin the next phase of her operation.

“Phase two?”

Jos laughed, and clapped her hands, delighted. “Oh, Lawrence! I love how your mind works. I’m so glad to see your little girl toy hasn’t corrupted you with her,” she closed her eye and shook her head, “blissful innocence…”

Lawrence made no reaction to this. It was the first time Jos had mentioned Lauren, but he would have been surprised if she hadn’t known. He had made no effort to hide her. Never lie to Jos was rule number one, but it was unfortunate that Jos was choosing to bring her up now. That meant Lauren now figured into Joslynne’s plans.

Jos circled around him, but he remained still. She would tell him what she wanted in her own way, hoping to extract the maximum amount of fun from his discomfort. She ran her hand across his chest then up into his hair as she moved behind him. When she returned to face him she locked her hands behind his neck and pressed herself against him while she looked up into his eyes. Jos liked to touch him, show ownership over him as much as possible. He had seen her play the same game with others so he wasn’t special in this regard. She was probably taking extra pleasure from it after revealing her knowledge of Lauren.

“Phase two,” she cooed. “I’ve decided to take direct control of phase two. You and your little sweetheart will be working for me. Your technical skills should complement each other nicely for what I have in mind. Lantis will take care of things here. We won’t need him for this.”

Lantis bristled and Jos glared at him. “Leave us.” As soon as Pirin was out of the room Jos released her grip on Lenits and moved back behind her desk. The show was over. Jos liked an audience and without one there was no need to carry on. She sat down and put her feet on the edge of the desk, facing the windows. Lawrence was on her blind side, but Jos never worried about such things. She didn’t need to trust, and she didn’t consider him a threat. “We leave tomorrow,” she told him. Put together your team. All of your little science friends. And little Lauren of course. I want experts in artificial neural patterns and energy propagation. Any other technicians you think will be useful. I’ve sent you a list. Choose from it. Lauren can help you cut it down.”

The meeting was over.

That was how Daisy got involved. Lauren and Lawrence had been reviewing the list in her apartment and Daisy rattled off the pertinent details about each person from memory. As it happened she had already seen the list. Helped prepare it, in fact. Human Resources would always be involved at an early stage when preparing a new project. Daisy had already been informed she would be in charge of personnel on the new station, a promotion that struck Lawrence as out of the blue, but Daisy was ecstatic.

The three of them reported to the shuttle bay the next morning as instructed. Three ships were waiting, but Jos was nowhere to be seen. She wouldn’t ride with the serfs. The names had been sent back to her before the end of the night, but Lawrence realized now that every person on the list was present. The choice Joslynne had given him was only that of who would be on his team. The usual bay crew was absent from their posts. Lawrence recognized the faces in their place as members of one of Lantis’ security crews. The entire launch was under wraps.

“All right, everyone, listen up!” Dylan Michaels strode off one of the shuttles, clipboard in hand. He spared a quick glance for Lawrence, Lauren, and Daisy but didn’t linger. “Your belongings are being packed up for you as I speak. They’ll follow in a few days, so I hope you packed everything you need to get you through between now and then. You’ve been organized into three teams. I’ll call your names in groups. Team one will board the shuttle behind me, team two, to my right, team three to my left… Team one…”

Daisy went aboard a different shuttle from Lawrence and Lauren. He hoped that was a good sign. What he thought was a bad sign was that nearly everyone he associated with on a regular basis was here. Dylan had charge of the security crew, and he was also piloting shuttle one. Daisy with her new promotion. Lauren. Lawrence didn’t keep a wide circle of friends. The fact that they were all together in this little project was Jos’ way of sending him a message, he was sure of it.

Work began immediately and they were given very little time to settle in. Lawrence was given his own quarters, small as they were, it seemed he retained that privilege at least. Dylan, as security chief, also rated his own room, but Lauren and Daisy were assigned quarters together, another subtle message. Lawrence was put in charge of the team he and Lauren had selected and made regular reports to Joslynne. Life went on.

The artifact became the focus of their lives for the next three years. The three teams did not discuss their work with each other, and were forbidden from doing so. Lawrence’s team was focused on duplicating the device, but Daisy seemed convinced that based on the makeup of the other two teams they were hard at work weaponizing it.

They were making progress. Access to the original device was limited, but it was clearly ancient. They did have access to detailed scans of a similar object. Lauren immediately recognized the data as the work of cyberneticist Eugene Alexander. The device Doctor Alexander described appeared to be a scaled down version of the larger artifact, and may have been derived from it. The function of the artifact appeared to be to suppress destructive energy, but the derivative device Doctor Alexander had been working with appeared capable of much more. The implied uses had been censored, but Lauren had ideas. If the field could be manipulated it could be used to suppress and control any number of different types of energy fields. Lawrence remembered that one of the specializations Jos had asked for was in artificial neural energy.

The first prototype device Lawrence’s team produced came about two and a half years into the project. That was when stories of people disappearing began. Lawrence was mindful of it, but he tried to stay focused on the work. That lasted for about another six months. Dylan was the one who saw what was happening.