Infiltration Part1.2 – Retirement

“Four children are in pursuit due west of the market center. One child has committed larceny on the Mother’s property and is currently in pursuit. Another child has been identified as Emily Aubert.”

Her message ran parallel to the juvenile escapees’ consciousness, yet crossed the mind of every Autorian AI. Even with the etternel imposter festering about the streets of Rhobane, someone was sure to come to Mira’s aid within seconds – minutes at the most. But perhaps she wouldn’t need anyone’s help; how could they escape on foot when their robotic adversary had the cable system to assist her?

Their obvious disadvantages did not stop them from trying. Almost as if they themselves were built to run parallel to the Domain, the troubled youth split in four different directions as soon as they crossed a busy intersection. This did nothing to break the android’s concentration on the little thief in pursuit: a boy with ruffled hair who, to Mira, looked barely a day older than fourteen years. With his back turned, she could not get a clear look at his face – and so she continued to chase after.

Though these children must have interpreted the streets as their labyrinthine key to salvation, there was no maneuver the boy could pull that would deter Mira. When his brisk run broke into a sprint, Mira knew it would not be long before his fallacious sense of panic overwhelmed whatever plan he and the others must have concocted before initiating their heist.

Again and again he shoved and tore through the innocent Flesh of the Autorise Domain. Anyone caught in his path was knocked to the side – and with his height, there were few willing to put this animal’s rampage to a halt. Most citizens knew better than to involve themselves in such immature crimes – and thus distanced themselves from the commotion.

It did not take long for the chase to transition from the housing district to the sanctioned foundry. Mira hoped his escapades through this area would be a mere diversion, and not indicative of the spot his group tended to collaborate. Once again she sent a message:

“The larcenist has entered the metallurgical plant. He is carrying a stolen chainwhip and is expected to be a young teenager.”

The boy’s sense of panic started to visibly settle in as he struggled to find a gate to the fenced-off foundry. He flinched when he turned over his shoulder to see the cables above quavering with Mira’s approach, the gears in her feet hot and ready for her to leap down to his level.

Even if he dashed away now, he had no chance of escape. For a moment he looked as if he had considered making an escape, but halted once the android’s feet hit the ground, landing with a small boom that rippled underneath.

The joints in Mira’s legs made the slightest of mechanical whirs as she returned to full height. Seeing him with her weapon, Mira reached for the stun device in the pocket of her vest – then realized it was gone.

In her own panic, she looked at the boy’s hands and realized the tool was nowhere to be found – not in her hands or in his. She didn’t remember Emily taking it, either – and prodding the network, she didn’t see any reports of a lost stun baton. Just when she realized that she had never brought the device with her in the first place, her thoughts were ruptured by a sudden thrash to her head.

Mira’s vision went red for a moment, her audio receptors ringing as she struggled to regain some sense of stability. She blinked, then touched the face of her helmet and realized part of it had been chipped off; it was only after taking her hand away when she realized a small hole had formed.

Looking up at the assailant, she noticed her whip still in his hand as he prepared to whirl its head toward her once again. With barely a moment to think, she ducked beneath the whip’s arc. The fence, made to withstand such kinetic attacks, emitted several sparks as the whip came in contact with it. The chain body, hot to the touch, scraped along the wiry frame before eventually settling on the grass below, barely missing its wielder’s already-damaged shoe.

This would not end well for him no matter how much he fought back. “Stop!” Mira shouted, seeing as he proceeded to bring the heavy chain around again. “Resisting will only make things worse.” But without her baton, was there anything she could do to convince him of this?

Unlike Emily, this boy did not smirk – did not sneer or snort. “Who’s resisting?” he challenged with a snarl. “You’re not shit without this!” He waved the whip around, again demonstrating his obvious ignorance on how to use it properly. The tips of grass blades singed away as the weapon’s body swooped about.

Everything she did with citizens was a balancing act – an attempt to keep conflict from escalating while still maintaining the Mother’s control. Knowing she ran the risk of her helmet suffering further damage, Mira stepped closer to her adversary. It took seconds for her to realize she was right about this boy’s age – as the database had identified him as Noah Pierre, age fourteen, second-time offender.

Just when Mira once again felt the need to push the network for assistance, Noah took a look above her head and prepared to swing his stolen weapon upward. Mira made out the faint sound of grinding coming from behind her head.

Knowing the delinquent’s intentions almost immediately, the officer leaped forward, moving at practically a breakneck pace. On contact, Noah let go of the weapon. He would have left this conflict with a few broken bones if it were not for his height and build keeping him together as the android pinned him down.

Within seconds, the now-aimless whip descended like acid rain, its sinuous body still activated and ready to burn through almost anything. Nearly every part of the weapon’s body crashed into Mira’s back, adding small scuffs into her tactical armor. Aside from damages to her uniform, Mira sustained minimal damage – and so was the case for Noah until part of the chain cut through a bit of his toe, having burned through part of the shoe.

The boy yelped, but still attempted to squirm from beneath Mira. He managed to free a hand and grab a pocket of dirt before slamming it through the tiny opening in her helmet.

“Stop resisting!” the officer demanded, blinking rapidly to get the dirt out of her eye. At the same time she spoke, the grinding from a moment ago ceased and two other etternel officers landed in front of her – one of them noticeably larger than the other.

“Both of you stop,” the larger android commanded. “Officer: identify yourself.”

Mira did so without effort, transmitting an ID number to her ally in silence. By the time the other officers acknowledged that this first officer was the one who had sent out the initial distress signal, they stepped forward, almost bewildering Noah as he wondered what had just happened.

As if by instinct, Mira pulled herself off Noah and allowed the other two to take him off the ground, each holding him by a shoulder.

A breeze broke through the little hole in the helmet, making her already-uncomfortably-long hair flutter about and graze the back of her neck. Realizing Noah now had a better look at her face through the damage that he himself had caused, she felt the slightest insecurity – even as the other two held him back. Every officer wore the same helmet – but it was Mira he would recognize as the one he had successfully damaged.

“Can you walk?” the smaller etternel asked, seeing the way Noah seemed to hop when they brought him to his feet. Meanwhile the larger of them pulled out a set of handcuffs.

He hesitated to reply, no doubt begging for an end to the pain in his foot. “Yeah,” he said. Seeing Mira’s whip out of reach made him more anxious than it should have – adding to the goosebumps running along his arms when cold metal clicked around his wrists. As he was pulled away, Mira took the weapon off the ground and flipped its kinetic switch off before wrapping it up in a loop. The sorry state of her now-shattered holster meant she now had to carry the whip in her hand.

She had almost forgotten about that holster until now – and when paired with her damaged helmet, she already knew the rest of her job today was not going to be as straightforward as she had wished. This chink was more than a little annoying when the helmets did not account for anyone having hair longer than a centimeter, meaning the act of keeping it all tucked in was a nightmare. She could hardly imagine Esther’s current struggle – but at least Esther didn’t have to deal with damaged armor and an eye full of dirt.

If they weren’t already in the outskirts of the housing district, Mira wouldn’t have considered doing what she was about to. Eyes closed, she groped for the release at the back and gave it a little pull.

The front face shifted forward just enough for the officer to squeeze her head through the opening.

Striking green eyes shined down upon Noah. Noah stared back, bewildered by the endangered femininity on full display. Mira felt as if she were breaking a rule – for while he had undoubtedly seen a humanoid etternel face before, there were few who had seen an etternel who strayed as far from the usual genderless countenance as Mira did now. Such traits as the tilted eyes, the upturned nose, the full lips on her face struck out that much more when the Domain wasn’t working to strip Mira of that which made her female in the first place.

Rubbing the dirt out of her eye, she kept the other eye on Noah despite not needing to. She gave a few taps to the helmet to knock any remaining dirt out, then set the helmet back on. From here, Mira and the other officers made their way back to the housing district so they could get on a clear road to HQ.

Mira thought that with all the running he had just done, the boy would be at least somewhat desperate for air, but he hardly made a sound. Trembling as he walked, his knuckles whitened in his balled fists. How long would it be before he broke into a run, forgetting about his injured toe entirely?

While trapped in her thoughts, Mira was surprised to see a message from her fellow officers: “Please return to your post. Other officers are already on the lookout for the accomplices you reported. We will take care of Pierre.”

That seemed to be it – but before Mira could make her leave, the smaller of the officers turned their head to her. “The imposter we were warned about has been captured, as well. He is going to be interrogated at the same time as Pierre.”

When Noah squirmed at that comment, Mira knew why her fellow officer was talking out loud. “What happened to him?” she asked, silently inquiring to see the look on Noah’s face as she walked behind the etternel carrying him.

“He is being sent to a prison cell for now,” they replied. “He at least had the common sense to not attack an officer, so he will not receive any sort of castration.”

The boy moaned and shook in horror.

After returning back to her normal duties, Mira continued carrying her weapon in-hand, walking slower than she was before and keeping a close eye on any children she might encounter – though by now the lot of them had been captured, according to her feed. All the while she received updates from the interrogations happening in HQ. By the time the interrogation of the etternel imposter had gone underway, Mira tapped into the feed, easily keeping herself focused on patrolling the streets as she watched live footage of the investigation.

It all took place in the Human Affairs section of HQ.

Jeffrey Donadieu, age 23, previously arrested at the age of 19 for market theft, now faces an indefinite – and currently undetermined – sentence for impersonating an etternel officer.

The Domain had made no effort to take back his stolen garments before bringing him in for questioning – the only exception being the helmet. Once this footage spread beyond the Mother’s knowing gaze, others would recognize the man and make a quicker effort to report any future crimes he planned on carrying out.

Whether Donadieu was lucky enough to find a dead android’s body or had outright killed one of them himself remained to be seen. All the Domain and its people knew for now was that he was a definite threat to the Mother and Her harmony. As stubborn and rebellious as Noah and his group of friends had proven over the course of the last hour, the Domain could at least blame some of their idiocy on their youth – but not so for Donadieu.

Mira wished there were a way to feed those children an unprocessed funnel of data that the Domain had gathered on Donadieu – for them to have a way to understand in a few seconds that they were wrong and why they were wrong. Due to their youth, they all ran the risk of walking Donadieu’s path much sooner than Donadieu himself had. If they were fed the correct knowledge, maybe then would Noah and his friends realize what kind of life they were rapidly headed for – and do everything in their power to break from that path.

Instead Noah was likely left deaf to every word exchanged during the investigation. It was a necessary, yet unfortunate sacrifice the Domain needed to make.

A somewhat primitive, but still entirely functional condaire android rolled in to help coordinate today’s interrogations, as well as present most of the questions and keep track of responses. Meanwhile, the etternel who had brought Donadieu in were more than willing to present further points from what they had seen of this man so far.

One thing Mira realized from this interrogation – which the record on Donadieu had not stated – was that he had undergone amputation and prosthesis of both arms and one of his legs; this must have made him relatively easy to capture once he was recognized as a false etternel. Practically a cyborg himself, the topic was brought up that Donadieu might have manipulated his record in some way – perhaps with the aid of his cybernetic attachments – to prevent the Domain from realizing another etternel had been captured or perhaps even destroyed.

Try as they might, the condaire and present etternel could not glean any information in regard to record-tampering on his end. It certainly seemed possible, but largely improbable – and in any case, there was no evidence to suggest he had ever done such a thing.

“A full scan of Rélhum will be initiated tomorrow at 0430. Enflamiere Mírre.”

The message came in the midst of the interrogation. Surprisingly, it was not accompanied with a second message telling Esther and Mira to put a halt on their mission. It seemed they would not partake in this scan.

It was suggested that Donadieu might have hired someone to take care of the task of tampering, but the man would not move from his stance that – directly or not – he was not responsible for any hacks whatsoever. One of the many lights on the condaire’s face flashed twice before settling down – at the same time a fan within its cylindrical husk of a body started revving up. “Do you have any ties to the people of New Crawford?” it asked.

“No,” answered Jeff.

“What about luocans of any kind?”

“No,” he said again. “And if I did, how would I be able to contact them? You would just hop onto the radio station if they tried anything with that.”

“We’ve heard almost no radio chatter from luocans in well over a year,” one of the etternel commented. “Which has led some of us to believe the luocans are communicating through some other means.”

Whatever Donadieu’s reaction was to that tidbit of information, Mira could not tell.

When at last it came time for Noah to be interrogated, he and the two androids who had brought him in settled along with the same condaire that had conducted the previous examination.

Unfortunately, Mira had little time to listen in to this one; it was nearly 10:40am. Surely by now her partner must have been waiting for her at the station.

After dealing with her discomforting gear for over an hour, Mira was glad to finally return to the changing station so she could remove her helmet and be assured that nobody would try to steal her whip.

A pull at the network told her that Esther had already taken care of her own gear five minutes before. Keeping her partner in mind, Mira sent a signal.

“I am about to return my gear to the station.”

As she sent this message, Mira took a seat on one of the benches and scratched the back of her neck, taking a moment to realize this was probably going to be the last time she saw this place. Every etternel helmet was placed in its own cage along the wall, every vest hung on a conveyor, every pair of boots boxed.

A handful of condaire wheeled around, checking to see if any etternel needed assistance and scanning the apparel for signs of wear. Surely any human officer with Mira’s now-damaged apparel would have been embarrassed be seen with it.

The android approached one of the condaire with a request for civilian attire – at which point it went right out of its way to fetch the clothes in question.

A message came in. “Good. I was just watching the interrogation. I heard you had something to do with it.”

“Yes, I did,” Mira acknowledged. “But something happened when I was faced with that boy: I realized I didn’t have my stun baton with me.”

Before the conversation could continue, the condaire returned with a small bag of clothes Mira would need for her task. It was only then when she started taking the rest of her attire off.

Beneath her battered uniform, rubbery skin-tight wrappings clung to her skin – as it did for all etternel. It had been a handful of weeks since she last needed to take them off, as the last time a troublesome citizen had caused any physical harm was well over a month ago. Looking at them now, they didn’t seem to show any signs of damage; it was a shame she had to get rid of them so soon. As she peeled them off, the wrappings continued sticking to Mira’s bare skin, practically begging to stay on as she stripped to her castrated, denuded form. Once she tore them away from her legs, her arms, and everything that wasn’t typically interfaced with or exposed to the elements, she tossed the wraps in the nearest wastebin.

Her chest and nether regions completely bare, she hoped the luocans she was to meet had the decency to not peek at herself or Esther, knowing their gelded appearances would have made others more suspicious of their origins than they otherwise already would have been. It may have been futile to hope for such things, but if other etternel could walk in and see her as she was now without issue, it should have been the same with luocans. It should have been, but she knew this very much was not the case. She couldn’t think of any other animal that was quite as anal about nudity as humans were. Shaking her head, she ignored these concerns and slipped on her new clothes.

While the Domain referred to these clothes as new, they were anything but – looking and smelling like something someone had thrown away a year ago. But that was the point: to look like someone had thrown her away. It was only after slipping into her shoes when she almost felt she could relate to the luocans’ struggles to some degree.

Her vest, pants, helmet, and whip – all laid in a straight line on the bench by her side – served as a reminder of the last decade. It had been over a decade since she was deployed to Rhobane – over a decade since she met Esther and they became partners, and in that time, she had accrued a meaningful relationship with Mírre in Rélhum, made herself known among Her servants and those who would one day become Her servants. In a way, the Mother was asking her to throw everything away for the sake of the Domain’s continued existence – its continued victory.

She may as well have been reintegrated at this point – torn piece by piece so she could be reused and brought back to life in a repurposed body: one that could serve the Mother’s needs more efficiently. Instead the Mother gave her a task that would fill any etternel with trepidation, if such an emotion were known to them. It made sense to Mira why the Mother did what she did – why she stripped every etternel of their gender and emotion, as such damning traits led the rest of the Domain to falter. Beyond Mírre’s garden, there was nothing to falter, so the luocans held on to their repulsive ways.

Mira took one last look her at belongings – before taking them in her arms. She hung the vest with the pants and slid it onto the conveyor. She unlocked the cage and placed the boots within. Any damages sustained would be checked by the nearby condaire – and taken care of accordingly.

If ever Mira came back, she could very well find her suit right where it was – depending on how her mission with Esther played out. If their mission failed and they took too long to return or the mission resulted in their untimely deaths, their gear could just as easily be taken by somebody else or perhaps even destroyed.

One other cage to unlock, Mira walked over to the wall of helmets and opened the door to place the damaged headgear inside. The crack that boy had caused was a sign of wear and damage, but – in some strange way, a job well done. Mira remembered this as she recalled her last decade, the era drawing to a close as the locker door did the same.

“Did somebody steal it?”

Mira had almost forgotten she was in a conversation with Esther. It took a moment to remember it was the baton.

“I don’t know,” she had to admit. “I might have lost it somewhere, but nobody has reported it being lost.” She almost paused in her message before also sending: “I am about to head up to the train station.” The clock read “1051.”

With nothing left on her agenda, Mira departed the changing station and made her way to the train, basking under the bright clouds as they started to dim to gray.

They had a plan to set up.

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Whew! That took just a bit longer than I anticipated…about two weeks longer. The last few weeks have been just a little chaotic, but now that chapter 2 is done, I am going to be working to get new chapters out at a faster pace. Expect some interludes here and there, as well — something with Naomi, Robert, or Augusta; just don’t expect me to clue you in on when they’re coming!

The Discord server is open, as always.